Java Code unable to delete file

Question

My java code is unable to delete files on the the system hard drive.

Whenever file.delete() function is called, it returns false. Any ideas, why that might be happening?

Answer 1

File.delete() can fail to delete a file for many reasons including:

• you don't have correct permissions to delete the file
• the file represents a directory and the directory is not empty
• the file is locked by another process, (or even by the same process in say an unclosed FileOutputStream)
• the file doesn't exist

Answer 2

File.delete() can return false if you are trying to delete a directory that is not empty, or the named file simply doesn't exist at the time of the call.

(if there is a permission issue, a SecurityException is thrown)