How do I read bean’s property value?

In this example we will learn how to use PropertyUtils.getSimpleProperty() method to read bean’s property value. To test this method we will create a simple class called Track for our bean. The Track class have some properties such as id, title and duration.

The PropertyUtils.getSimpleProperty() reads our bean property by accessing the bean’s getter method. The method takes two parameters. The first parameter is the bean and the second parameter is the bean’s property name. It returns a java.lang.Object as a result, that means we have to cast it to the desired type.

package org.kodejava.commons.beanutils;

import org.apache.commons.beanutils.PropertyUtils;
import org.kodejava.commons.beanutils.support.Track;

public class ReadBeanProperty {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Track track = new Track();
        track.setTitle("Here Comes The Sun");

        try {
            String title = (String) PropertyUtils.getSimpleProperty(track, "title");
            System.out.println("Track title = " + title);
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

And here is the Track class.

package org.kodejava.commons.beanutils.support;

public class Track {
    private Long id;
    private String title;
    private Integer duration;

    public Long getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(Long id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public String getTitle() {
        return title;
    }

    public void setTitle(String title) {
        this.title = title;
    }

    public Integer getDuration() {
        return duration;
    }

    public void setDuration(Integer duration) {
        this.duration = duration;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "Track{" +
                "id=" + id +
                ", title='" + title + '\'' +
                ", duration=" + duration +
                '}';
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>commons-beanutils</groupId>
    <artifactId>commons-beanutils</artifactId>
    <version>1.9.4</version>
</dependency>

Maven Central

How do I find text between two strings?

In this example we’ll use the StringUtils.substringBetween() method. Here we’ll extract the title and body of our HTML document. Let’s see the code.

package org.kodejava.commons.lang;

import java.util.Date;

import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils;

public class NestedString {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String helloHtml = "<html>" +
                "<head>" +
                "   <title>Hello World from Java</title>" +
                "<body>" +
                "Hello, today is: " + new Date() +
                "</body>" +
                "</html>";

        String title = StringUtils.substringBetween(helloHtml, "<title>", "</title>");
        String content = StringUtils.substringBetween(helloHtml, "<body>", "</body>");

        System.out.println("title = " + title);
        System.out.println("content = " + content);
    }
}

By printing out the title and content, we’ll see something similar to:

title = Hello World from Java
content = Hello, today is: Thu Sep 30 06:32:32 CST 2021

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
    <artifactId>commons-lang3</artifactId>
    <version>3.14.0</version>
</dependency>

Maven Central

How do I check for an empty string?

package org.kodejava.commons.lang;

import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils;

public class EmptyStringCheckDemo {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Create some variable to hold some empty string, contains only
        // whitespaces and words.
        String one = "";
        String two = "\t\r\n";
        String three = "     ";
        String four = null;
        String five = "four four two";

        // We can use StringUtils class for checking if a string is empty or not
        // using StringUtils.isBlank() method. This method will return true if
        // the tested string is empty, contains whitespaces only or null.
        System.out.println("Is one empty? " + StringUtils.isBlank(one));
        System.out.println("Is two empty? " + StringUtils.isBlank(two));
        System.out.println("Is three empty? " + StringUtils.isBlank(three));
        System.out.println("Is four empty? " + StringUtils.isBlank(four));
        System.out.println("Is five empty? " + StringUtils.isBlank(five));

        // On the other side, the StringUtils.isNotBlank() methods complement
        // the previous method. It will check if a tested string is not empty.
        System.out.println("Is one not empty? " + StringUtils.isNotBlank(one));
        System.out.println("Is two not empty? " + StringUtils.isNotBlank(two));
        System.out.println("Is three not empty? " + StringUtils.isNotBlank(three));
        System.out.println("Is four not empty? " + StringUtils.isNotBlank(four));
        System.out.println("Is five not empty? " + StringUtils.isNotBlank(five));
    }
}

Here is the result:

Is one empty? true
Is two empty? true
Is three empty? true
Is four empty? true
Is five empty? false
Is one not empty? false
Is two not empty? false
Is three not empty? false
Is four not empty? false
Is five not empty? true

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
    <artifactId>commons-lang3</artifactId>
    <version>3.14.0</version>
</dependency>

Maven Central

How do I write string data to file?

The following code snippet shows you how to write strings of data into a file using the Apache Commons IO library. We can use the FileUtils.writeStringToFile() method to do it. This method accepts the file object where the data will be stored, the data itself, and the encoding.

package org.kodejava.commons.io;

import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;

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

public class WriteToFileExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
            // Here we'll write our data into a file called
            // output.txt; this is the output.
            File file = new File("output.txt");
            // We'll write the string below into the file
            String data = "Learn Java by Examples";

            // To write a file called the writeStringToFile
            // method which requires you to pass the file and
            // the data to be written.
            FileUtils.writeStringToFile(file, data, "UTF-8");
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>commons-io</groupId>
    <artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
    <version>2.14.0</version>
</dependency>

Maven Central

How do I calculate directory size?

In this example, we are going to use the Apache Commons IO library to get or calculate the total size of a directory. The FileUtils class provided by the Commons IO can help us to achieve this goal.

The first method that we can use is the FileUtils.sizeOfDirectory(), it calculates the size of a directory recursively. It takes a File object that represent a directory as parameter and returns long value. If the directory has security restriction this method return 0. A negative value returned when the directory size if bigger than Long.MAX_VALUE.

You can also use the FileUtils.sizeOfDirectoryAsBigInteger() method. This method returns the result as BigInteger as the method name describe. As the first method, this method also return 0 when the directory has a security restriction.

Both of the methods described above return the directory size in byte. If you want a more human-readable size you can utilize the FileUtils.byteCountToDisplaySize() method, it will convert the byte value into something like 1 MB, 1 GB.

package org.kodejava.commons.io;

import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;

import java.io.File;
import java.math.BigInteger;

public class DirectorySizeSample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // sizeOfDirectory
        File tempDir = new File("/Users/wayan/Temp");
        long size = FileUtils.sizeOfDirectory(tempDir);
        System.out.println("TempDir size = " + size + " bytes");
        System.out.println("TempDir size = " +
                FileUtils.byteCountToDisplaySize(size));

        // sizeOfDirectoryAsBigInteger()
        File dropboxDir = new File("/Users/wayan/Dropbox");
        BigInteger sizeBig = FileUtils.sizeOfDirectoryAsBigInteger(dropboxDir);
        System.out.println("DropboxDir size = " + sizeBig);
        System.out.println("DropboxDir size = " +
                FileUtils.byteCountToDisplaySize(sizeBig));
    }
}

The result of the code snippet above:

TempDir size = 514239345 bytes
TempDir size = 490 MB
DropboxDir size = 6184
DropboxDir size = 6 KB

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>commons-io</groupId>
    <artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
    <version>2.14.0</version>
</dependency>

Maven Central