Why does this program fall into endless loop?

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Jack Dowson - 06 May 2007 11:18 GMT

Hello EveryBody:
Here is a small demo:

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
class DeleteDir{
    public DeleteDir(File dir){
        if(dir.isDirectory()){
            LinkedList dirs = new LinkedList();
            dirs.add(dir);
            while(dirs.size() > 0){
                File currentDir = (File)dirs.getFirst();
                File[] files = currentDir.listFiles();
                boolean emptyDir = true;
                for(int i= 0; i<files.length; i++){
                    if(files[i].isFile()){
                        System.out.println("Deleting..." + files[i].getAbsolutePath());
                        try{
                            files[i].delete();
                        }catch(SecurityException se){
                            se.printStackTrace();
                                }
                    }else{
                        dirs.addFirst(files[i]);
                        emptyDir = false;
                    }
                }

                if(emptyDir){
                    System.out.println("Deleting... " + currentDir.getAbsolutePath());
                    try{
                        currentDir.delete();
                    }catch(SecurityException se){
                        se.printStackTrace();
                            }
                    dirs.removeFirst();
                    }
                }
        }else if(dir.isFile()){
            System.out.println("Error: " + dir.getName() + " is a file");
        }else System.out.println("Error: " + dir.getName() + " is unknown");

    }
    public static void main(String[] args){
        File dir = new File(args[0]);
        DeleteDir delDir = new DeleteDir(dir);
            }
    }

When I excute "java DeleteDir experiment",it goes to endless loop.
Deleting... F:\java\practise\practise8\experiment\experiment\experiment
Deleting... F:\java\practise\practise8\experiment\experiment\experiment
Deleting... F:\java\practise\practise8\experiment\experiment\experiment
Deleting... F:\java\practise\practise8\experiment\experiment\experiment
......
Only by Ctrl+c can I stop it!

Experiment here is a directory in which there is only another directory
named experiment which includes an empty directory named experiment
again in it.Mayb you will feel puzzled.Tree this directory,we can get:
└─experiment
└─experiment
└─experiment

That's the whole of my question!
Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Dowson.

Reply to this Message

Christian - 06 May 2007 11:38 GMT

Jack Dowson schrieb:

> Hello EveryBody:
> Here is a small demo:
[quoted text clipped - 64 lines]
>
> Dowson.

here some advice:
1. Don't place all your code in a constructor.. use Methods for
executing program logic.
2. Filesystems are trees, a recursive structure.. so use recursion to
work them off... in fact with your Linked List you implemented your own
stack.. that is something recursion can do for you way more elegant..
3. SecurityExceptions? You only need these if a SecurityManager is present..
4. Check if the deletion worked.. if deletion of your Dir did not work
your program will fall in an infinite loop .. (delete() returns a
boolean that tells you this)

Christian

Reply to this Message

Lew - 06 May 2007 13:11 GMT

Jack Dowson schrieb:

>> Only by Ctrl+c can I stop it!

> here some advice:
> 1. Don't place all your code in a constructor.. use Methods for
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> your program will fall in an infinite loop .. (delete() returns a
> boolean that tells you this)

Also, use spaces not TABs to indent UseNet code examples.