[SOLVED] Check if a file exists before calling openFileInput

Check if a file exists before calling openFileInput

To read a file in Android from your app's private storage area you use the functionopenFileInput().

My question is, is there a way to check if this file exists before calling this function? The function can throw a FileNotFoundException, but I feel like calling this and then doing something based on a try-catch is a bad practice.

Using File.exist() seems like a strange thing to use also since it would require instantiating a class and I am not sure if just passing the name of the file to it would get it to find the file in the private area of my phone.

Solution

public boolean fileExists(Context context, String filename) {    
    File file = context.getFileStreamPath(filename);
    if(file == null || !file.exists()) {
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}

EDIT:

Also, here is another way for files in external storage.

String fileUrl = "/appname/data.xml";
String file = android.os.Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().getPath() + fileUrl;
File f = new File(file);

if(f.exists())
return;