Here you can find the source of exists(String fileorUrl)
public static boolean exists(String fileorUrl)
//package com.java2s; /*//from w ww . j av a 2 s .c o m * Copyright (C) 2011 Life Technologies Inc. * * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by * the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or * (at your option) any later version. * * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the * GNU General Public License for more details. * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License * along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. */ import java.io.File; import java.net.HttpURLConnection; import java.net.URL; import java.net.URLConnection; public class Main { public static boolean exists(String fileorUrl) { // p("Checking if " + fileorUrl + " exists"); if (isUrl(fileorUrl)) { if (fileorUrl.startsWith("http")) { return existsHttp(fileorUrl); } else { try { URL url = new URL(fileorUrl); // p(url + " looks ok"); try { URLConnection uc = url.openConnection(); uc.setDoInput(true); ; uc.connect(); //p("Exists: url " + url ); return true; } catch (Exception ex) { p("Could not open url " + url + ":" + ex.getMessage()); } return false; } catch (Exception ex) { p(fileorUrl + " is not a valid url"); return false; } } } else { File f = new File(fileorUrl); return f.exists(); } } public static boolean isUrl(String path) { if (path == null || path.length() < 1) { return false; } int pos = path.indexOf("://"); if (pos > 0 && pos < 10) { return true; } else { return false; } } static boolean existsHttp(String URLName) { try { HttpURLConnection.setFollowRedirects(false); // note : you may also need // HttpURLConnection.setInstanceFollowRedirects(false) HttpURLConnection con = (HttpURLConnection) new URL(URLName).openConnection(); con.setRequestMethod("HEAD"); con.setConnectTimeout(10000); int code = con.getResponseCode(); boolean ex = (code == HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK); p("Exists url " + URLName + ", code: " + code + "= " + ex); return ex; } catch (Exception e) { p("URL does not exist: " + e.getMessage()); return false; } } private static void p(String string) { System.out.println("FileUtils:" + string); } }