The first is always a dir. The second can be only a dir
and a file.

Often both works fine.

Arne

In a previous article, Jack Dowson <jckdwsn@aol.com> said:

The first one will fail because you didn't give a file name, and the
second one will fail because there is already a directory of that name.

The last '/'.

More importantly, neither are formed in an x-plat
manner.  The best way to do it is.

String sep = System.getProperty("file.separator");

File home = new File(sep + "home");
File target = new File( home, "dowson" );

<sscce>
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;

class FileOperations {

  public static void printFileStatus(File f) {
     String status = ( f.isDirectory() ?
        "DIR" : ( f.isFile() ?
        "FILE" : "NONE"));
     System.out.println(
        "exists: " + f.exists() +
        " \tpath: " + f +
        "\nDir/File:  " + status );
  }

  public static void main(String args[])
     throws IOException {

     String sep =
        System.getProperty("file.separator");
     File homey = new File(sep + "homey");
     File boy = new File(homey, "boy" + sep);
     printFileStatus( boy );

     System.out.println(
        "\tcreate the directories");
     boy.mkdirs();
     printFileStatus( boy );

     System.out.println(
        "\tdelete the child directory");
     boy.delete();
     System.out.println(
        "\tcreate the file");
     boy.createNewFile();

     printFileStatus( boy );

     System.out.println(
        "\tdelete the file & parent directory");
     boy.delete();
     homey.delete();

     printFileStatus( boy );
     printFileStatus( homey );
  }
}
</sscce>

HTH

Assuming import java.io.File:

Well, have you tried it?

In practical terms, it makes no difference. If you use
file.createNewFile() in either case, you end up with a file. If you use
file.mkdir(), assuming /home exists, you end up with a directory.