[FIXED] How to find files that match a wildcard string in Java?

Issue

This should be really simple. If I have a String like this:

../Test?/sample*.txt

then what is a generally-accepted way to get a list of files that match this pattern? (e.g. it should match ../Test1/sample22b.txt and ../Test4/sample-spiffy.txt but not ../Test3/sample2.blah or ../Test44/sample2.txt)

I've taken a look at org.apache.commons.io.filefilter.WildcardFileFilter and it seems like the right beast but I'm not sure how to use it for finding files in a relative directory path.

I suppose I can look the source for ant since it uses wildcard syntax, but I must be missing something pretty obvious here.

(edit: the above example was just a sample case. I'm looking for the way to parse general paths containing wildcards at runtime. I figured out how to do it based on mmyers' suggestion but it's kind of annoying. Not to mention that the java JRE seems to auto-parse simple wildcards in the main(String[] arguments) from a single argument to "save" me time and hassle... I'm just glad I didn't have non-file arguments in the mix.)

Solution

Consider DirectoryScanner from Apache Ant:

DirectoryScanner scanner = new DirectoryScanner();
scanner.setIncludes(new String[]{"**/*.java"});
scanner.setBasedir("C:/Temp");
scanner.setCaseSensitive(false);
scanner.scan();
String[] files = scanner.getIncludedFiles();

You'll need to reference ant.jar (~ 1.3 MB for ant 1.7.1).

Answered By - Misha
Answer Checked By - David Goodson (JavaFixing Volunteer)