[jira] Issue Comment Edited: (IO-205) FileUtils.forceMkdir Javadoc is unclear

["Sebb (JIRA)" <ji...@apache.org>]

    [ https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/IO-205?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=12709664#action_12709664 ] 

Sebb edited comment on IO-205 at 3/5/10 1:46 AM:
-------------------------------------------------

Surely it's also possible for a directory entry to be neither a file nor a directory, so maybe the check should be:

{code}
File.isFile() && !File.isDirectory()
{code}

[Later] A File may perhaps be neither but that's not relevant as we are only interested in whether an existing File is a directory or not.

      was (Author: sebb@apache.org):
    Surely it's also possible for a directory entry to be neither a file nor a directory, so maybe the check should be:

{code}
File.isFile() && !File.isDirectory()
{code}
  
> FileUtils.forceMkdir Javadoc is unclear
> ---------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: IO-205
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/IO-205
>             Project: Commons IO
>          Issue Type: Bug
>            Reporter: Trejkaz
>
> The Javadoc for FileUtils.forceMkdir doesn't say what is supposed to happen if a directory already exists with the same path.
> It does (misleadingly) say that if a file already exists, it fails.  I interpreted this to mean that a directory would also fail, as it said *file* and not *normal file*.  However in reality, if the directory already exists, the method passes.
> For clarity it should say that it succeeds if the directory already exists, and should probably also explicitly say "normal file" instead of just "file", as all directories are files.
> Also, internally, I notice it is checking for File.isFile() whereas our existing method for implementing the same thing is checking !File.isDirectory().  On some filesystems, a file can be both a directory and a normal file, and in this situation I would expect the method to pass, whereas with Commons' implementation it would fail.  Maybe this is a trip-up because Sun themselves documented "normal file" as meaning "something which is not a directory", which is going to break the moment someone runs something on a more exotic filesystem. :-(

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