Added in API level 26

PosixFileAttributeView

interface PosixFileAttributeView : BasicFileAttributeView, FileOwnerAttributeView

java.nio.file.attribute.PosixFileAttributeView

A file attribute view that provides a view of the file attributes commonly associated with files on file systems used by operating systems that implement the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) family of standards.

Operating systems that implement the POSIX family of standards commonly use file systems that have a file owner, group-owner, and related access permissions. This file attribute view provides read and write access to these attributes.

The readAttributes method is used to read the file's attributes. The file owner is represented by a UserPrincipal that is the identity of the file owner for the purposes of access control. The group-owner, represented by a GroupPrincipal, is the identity of the group owner, where a group is an identity created for administrative purposes so as to determine the access rights for the members of the group.

The permissions attribute is a set of access permissions. This file attribute view provides access to the nine permission defined by the PosixFilePermission class. These nine permission bits determine the read, write, and execute access for the file owner, group, and others (others meaning identities other than the owner and members of the group). Some operating systems and file systems may provide additional permission bits but access to these other bits is not defined by this class in this release.

Usage Example: Suppose we need to print out the owner and access permissions of a file:

Path file = ...
      PosixFileAttributes attrs = Files.getFileAttributeView(file, PosixFileAttributeView.class)
          .readAttributes();
      System.out.format("%s %s%n",
          attrs.owner().getName(),
          PosixFilePermissions.toString(attrs.permissions()));
  

Dynamic Access

Where dynamic access to file attributes is required, the attributes supported by this attribute view are as defined by BasicFileAttributeView and FileOwnerAttributeView, and in addition, the following attributes are supported:

Supported attributes

Name	Type
"permissions"	Set<PosixFilePermission>
"group"	GroupPrincipal

The getAttribute method may be used to read any of these attributes, or any of the attributes defined by BasicFileAttributeView as if by invoking the readAttributes() method.

The setAttribute method may be used to update the file's last modified time, last access time or create time attributes as defined by BasicFileAttributeView. It may also be used to update the permissions, owner, or group-owner as if by invoking the setPermissions, setOwner, and setGroup methods respectively.

Setting Initial Permissions

Implementations supporting this attribute view may also support setting the initial permissions when creating a file or directory. The initial permissions are provided to the createFile or createDirectory methods as a FileAttribute with name "posix:permissions" and a value that is the set of permissions. The following example uses the asFileAttribute method to construct a FileAttribute when creating a file:

Path path = ...
      Set<PosixFilePermission> perms =
          EnumSet.of(OWNER_READ, OWNER_WRITE, OWNER_EXECUTE, GROUP_READ);
      Files.createFile(path, PosixFilePermissions.asFileAttribute(perms));
  

When the access permissions are set at file creation time then the actual value of the permissions may differ that the value of the attribute object. The reasons for this are implementation specific. On UNIX systems, for example, a process has a umask that impacts the permission bits of newly created files. Where an implementation supports the setting of the access permissions, and the underlying file system supports access permissions, then it is required that the value of the actual access permissions will be equal or less than the value of the attribute provided to the createFile or createDirectory methods. In other words, the file may be more secure than requested.

Summary

Public methods
abstract String!	name() Returns the name of the attribute view.
abstract PosixFileAttributes!	readAttributes()
abstract Unit	setGroup(group: GroupPrincipal!) Updates the file group-owner.
abstract Unit	setPermissions(perms: MutableSet<PosixFilePermission!>!) Updates the file permissions.

Inherited functions
From class FileOwnerAttributeView UserPrincipal! getOwner() Read the file owner. It is implementation specific if the file owner can be a group. Unit setOwner(owner: UserPrincipal!) Updates the file owner. It is implementation specific if the file owner can be a group. To ensure consistent and correct behavior across platforms it is recommended that this method should only be used to set the file owner to a user principal that is not a group.
From class BasicFileAttributeView Unit setTimes(lastModifiedTime: FileTime!, lastAccessTime: FileTime!, createTime: FileTime!) Updates any or all of the file's last modified time, last access time, and create time attributes. This method updates the file's timestamp attributes. The values are converted to the epoch and precision supported by the file system. Converting from finer to coarser granularities result in precision loss. The behavior of this method when attempting to set a timestamp that is not supported or to a value that is outside the range supported by the underlying file store is not defined. It may or not fail by throwing an IOException. If any of the lastModifiedTime, lastAccessTime, or createTime parameters has the value null then the corresponding timestamp is not changed. An implementation may require to read the existing values of the file attributes when only some, but not all, of the timestamp attributes are updated. Consequently, this method may not be an atomic operation with respect to other file system operations. Reading and re-writing existing values may also result in precision loss. If all of the lastModifiedTime, lastAccessTime and createTime parameters are null then this method has no effect. Usage Example: Suppose we want to change a file's last access time. Path path = ... FileTime time = ... Files.getFileAttributeView(path, BasicFileAttributeView.class).setTimes(null, time, null);

Public methods

name

Added in API level 26

abstract fun name(): String!

Returns the name of the attribute view. Attribute views of this type have the name "posix".

Return
String!	the name of the attribute view

readAttributes

Added in API level 26

abstract fun readAttributes(): PosixFileAttributes!

Return
PosixFileAttributes!	the file attributes

Exceptions
java.io.IOException	if an I/O error occurs
java.lang.SecurityException	In the case of the default provider, a security manager is installed, and it denies RuntimePermission("accessUserInformation") or its checkRead method denies read access to the file.

setGroup

Added in API level 26

abstract fun setGroup(group: GroupPrincipal!): Unit

Updates the file group-owner.

Parameters
group	GroupPrincipal!: the new file group-owner

Exceptions
java.io.IOException	if an I/O error occurs
java.lang.SecurityException	In the case of the default provider, and a security manager is installed, it denies RuntimePermission("accessUserInformation") or its checkWrite method denies write access to the file.

setPermissions

Added in API level 26

abstract fun setPermissions(perms: MutableSet<PosixFilePermission!>!): Unit

Updates the file permissions.

Parameters
perms	MutableSet<PosixFilePermission!>!: the new set of permissions

Exceptions
java.lang.ClassCastException	if the sets contains elements that are not of type PosixFilePermission
java.io.IOException	if an I/O error occurs
java.lang.SecurityException	In the case of the default provider, a security manager is installed, and it denies RuntimePermission("accessUserInformation") or its checkWrite method denies write access to the file.