Thread: How do you check to see if a RandomAccessFile already exists?

I'm asking the user to give me the name of the file they wish to write to. If that file already exists, I will ask them if they wish to update that file, or just create a different file with a different name. If the file doesn't exist, I just create the file right there.

This was working well through the ".exists()" method of the File class, but apparently RandomAccessFiles can't do that??

I looked the API for the RAF and nowhere have I found anything that resembles ".exists()".

Here's my code:
System.out.println("What is the name of the file you would like to write to?");

        public RandomAccessFile receiveFile ()
        {
                String fileName;
                String yesno = "y";
                RandomAccessFile raf = null;
                Scanner input = new Scanner(System.in);
 
                do
                {
                        System.out.println("What is the name of the file you would like to write to?");
                        fileName = input.next();
 
                        try
                        {
                                raf = new RandomAccessFile(fileName, "rw");
 
                        } catch (IOException ex)
                        {
                                System.out.println();
                        }
 
                        // check if file already exists
                        if(raf.exists()) // ERROR THIS DOESN'T WORK
                        {
                                System.out.println("That file already exists. Would you like to update it? (y/n)");
                                yesno = input.next();
                        }
 
                } while (yesno.equals("n"));
 
                return raf;
        }

But you can still use the user-specified filename as a File, determine if it exists, etc., and then create the RandomAccessFile using the constructor that takes a File as an argument. Won't that work?

Well that works! Haha, thanks.