File separator vs FileSystem getSeparator vs System getProperty file separator

Question

There seems to be three identical ways to get the platform-dependent  file separator  platform-independently    java io File separator java nio file FileSystems getDefault   getSeparator    System getProperty  file separator     How do we decide when to use which   Is there even any difference between them

User · Accepted Answer

System getProperties   can be overridden by calls to System setProperty String key  String value  or with command line parameters -Dfile separator    File separator gets the separator for the default filesystem   FileSystems getDefault   gets you the default filesystem   FileSystem getSeparator   gets you the separator character for the filesystem  Note that as an instance method you can use this to pass different filesystems to your code other than the default  in cases where you need your code to operate on multiple filesystems in the one JVM

User · Answer

If your code doesn t cross filesystem boundaries  i e  you re just working with one filesystem  then use java io File separator   This will  as explained  get you the default separator for your FS  As Bringer128 explained  System getProperty  file separator   can be overriden via command line options and isn t as type safe as java io File separator   The last one  java nio file FileSystems getDefault   getSeparator    was introduced in Java 7  so you might as well ignore it for now if you want your code to be portable across older Java versions   So  every one of these options is almost the same as others  but not quite  Choose one that suits your needs

[java] File.separator vs FileSystem.getSeparator() vs System.getProperty("file.separator")?

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