Absolute path with string variable

Question

PLEASE help me to understand what is going on here:

my code:

import java.io.File;

public class Main {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String name = "‪d:\\downloads\\testfile.mp3";

        File file1 = new File(name);
        System.out.println(file1.getAbsolutePath());

        File file = new File("d:\\downloads\\testfile.mp3");        
        System.out.println(file.getAbsolutePath());
    }
}

The output:

J:\Louw\Programming\PathTest\‪d:\downloads\testfile.mp3
d:\downloads\testfile.mp3

Question: Why would the String variable produce a different Absolutepath than typing the string directly with new File object? (Obviously the first output also throws a "FileNotFound" exception if trying to use later).

my Eclipse java development environment is:

Eclipse Java EE IDE for Web Developers.

Version: Neon.2 Release (4.6.2) Build id: 20161208-0600

Please assist.

Answer 1

Now I am not 100 % sure whether this is the correct explanation, but I believe it is consistent, so I also believe that it is worth for you to check.

When I copy your code into my Eclipse, your string name begins with a character with Unicode value 8234 (202A hexadecimal). This character is not printed, so the two strings look the same, but they are not. The mentioned character is not it the string that you pass when constructing the second File object. On fileformat.info the character is called “left-to-right embedding”, I don’t know what this means.

It would make sense that such a character in front of d:\\ would cause Java not to recognize the string as an absolute path name and therefore take it as a relative one, relative to your working directory.

It remains to be determined whether that character is in your source file too or only has crept in on Stack Overflow or in my copy-paste operation.

If the 8234 is indeed the culprit: in my Eclipse I can delete it with backspace as any other character, and everything works as expected. Failing that, you can always delete a sequence of characters containing at least the " before and the d after and type them again.

Where that char may come from, I have no good idea. It sounds unlikely that you should have typed Alt-202A on your keyboard without knowing you had done so.