how do i add a wildcard to a file path in groovy?

Question

Im currently writing a spock test and need to add a wild card to a file path. the script should look into the subjects folder and into all the subfolders to find the advanced folder and look for exam.txt, however, i keep receiving an error saying FileNotFound.

I believe the code is correct as it can parse files fine but the wildcard bit throws the exception.

new File("School/Exams/Questions/Subjects/**/Advanced")
 if(it.name.matches("questions.txt"){
   print it
       }

Answer 1

You can use FileNameFinder to get list of file names:

new FileNameFinder()
    .getFileNames('School/Exams/Questions/Subjects/', '**/Advanced/questions.txt')

Answer 2

The java File class does not support wildcards which is why you are seeing the FileNotFoundException. The File class is trying to find a file with asterisk characters in the path name.

I think the groovy AntBuilder might be your friend here. Given the following groovy code:

new AntBuilder().fileScanner {
  fileset(dir: '.', includes: '**/Advanced/questions.txt')
}.each { File f -> 
  println "Found file ${f.path}"
}

(note the use of the 'search at any depth' double star wildcard in the includes pattern)

and the following directory structure:

$ tree
.
├── one
│   └── ten
│       └── Advanced
│           └── questions.txt
├── three
│   └── thirty
│       └── Advanced
└── two
    ├── twenty
    │   └── Advanced
    │       └── questions.txt
    └── twentyone
        └── Advanced

the script yields:

Found file one/ten/Advanced/questions.txt
Found file two/twenty/Advanced/questions.txt

with the paths abbreviated for readability.