What file system path is used by Android's Context.openFileOutput()?

Question

I can't understand why the answer to this isn't in the Android developer docs; I find them consistently frustrating.

Re the openFileOutput() method on the Context class to open a file for writing, what internal storage file path does it write to?

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Context.html

http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/data-storage.html#filesInternal

Answer 1

Re the openFileOutput() method on the Context class to open a file for writing, what internal storage file path does it write to?

It points to where getFilesDir() on Context returns. You can tell this because the documentation says:

Returns the absolute path to the directory on the filesystem where files created with openFileOutput(String, int) are stored.

Answer 2

In DDMS, I found my file under:

data > data > your app id > files

Answer 3

You can retrieve that file path by calling Context#getFileStreamPath(String):

Returns the absolute path on the filesystem where a file created with openFileOutput(String, int) is stored.

It returns a File, so then call File#getAbsolutePath().

So summing up:

context.getFileStreamPath(name).getAbsolutePath()

Answer 4

This file is written to a path relative to your app within the devices memory. You may perhaps with ddms peek at the location, but when you are using this Context.openFileOutput(), you should not care about any absolute path.

If you want to pass the file name around you should consider using external storage.