Create temporary file

With this example we are going to demonstrate how to create a temporary file. We are using the File class that is an abstract representation of file and directory pathnames. In short, to create a temporary file you should:

• Create a new File instance by converting the given pathname string into an abstract pathname.
• Use createTempFile(String prefix, String suffix) API method of File. This method creates an empty file in the default temporary-file directory, using the given prefix and suffix to generate its name. Since the suffix is set to null the suffix ".tmp" will be used.

Let’s take a look at the code snippet that follows:

package com.javacodegeeks.snippets.core;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;

public class CreateTemporaryFile {
	
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		
		File file1 = null;
		File file2 = null;
		 
		try {
			file1 = File.createTempFile("tmp_file", null);
			System.out.println("Temporary file created: " + file1.getPath());
		}
		catch (IOException ioe) {
			System.out.println("Exception while creating temporary file : " + ioe);
		}		
		try {
			file2 = File.createTempFile("tmp_file", ".tmp");
			System.out.println("Temporary file created: " + file2.getPath());
		}
		catch (IOException ioe) {
			System.out.println("Exception while creating temporary file : " + ioe);
		}
	}
}

Output:

Temporary file created: C:UserslocaluserAppDataLocalTemptmp_file20310.tmp
Temporary file created: C:UserslocaluserAppDataLocalTemptmp_file20311.tmp

 
This was an example of how to create a temporary file in Java.