A directory is an organizational file system structure that contains Files and Directorates.
Here even an attacker can try to traverse or access a folder which we name as ‘File Traversal Attack or Path Traversal Attack a different directory. In short here directory is traversed which is outside the home/root directory. These files are server-internal files that are not accessible by the user.
So let us brief about Traversal Attacks
- The attacker can access the file from a different directory
- Directory Browsing is allowed when the server is misconfigured
- Sometimes even an attacker can access files which are beyond the root directories of the web browser
Prerequisites required are listFiles() and considering there are no path traversal attacks.
There are 2 methods to Traverse in a directory
- Using listFiles() Method
- Using Stream<Path>
Suppose there exists a directory with path C:\\GFG. The following image displays the files and directories present inside GFG folder. The sub directory “Ritik” contains a file named “Logistics.xlsx” and sub directory “Rohan” contains a file named “Payments.xlsx”.

GFG Directory
The following java programs illustrate how to traverse in a directory.
Method 1: Using listFiles() Method
- Create a File array to store the name and path of files.
- Call displayFiles method() to display all the files.
Java
// Java Program to trverse through a directory import java.io.File; class GFG { // function to display fies public static void displayFiles(File[] files) { // traversing through the files array for (File filename : files) { // if a sub directory is found, // print the name of the sub // directory if (filename.isDirectory()) { System.out.println( "Directory: " + filename.getName()); // and call the displayFiles function // recursivly to list files present // in sub directory displayFiles(filename.listFiles()); } // print the file name present in given path else { System.out.println( "File: " + filename.getName()); } } } // Main Method public static void main(String[] args) { // array to store the name of files and directories File[] files = new File( "C:\\GFG" ).listFiles(); // call displayFiles function to display files displayFiles(files); } } |
Output:
File: article.docx File: GFG.txt File: numbers.txt Directory: Ritik File: Logistics.xlsx Directory: Rohan File: Payments.xlsx
Method 2: Using Stream<Path>
Java 8 onwards, the walk() method was introduced to iterate over the entire directory recursively and retrieves Stream<Path> as the return value.
- Create a stream of file paths.
- Print entire directory and file path
- Throw Exception if no such directory exists as provided in the path.
Java
// Java Program to display files with // complete path present in a directory import java.io.*; // Importing Files import java.nio.file.*; import java.util.stream.Stream; class GFG { // Main Method public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException { // create try-catch block and provide // the directory path try (Stream<Path> filepath = Files.walk(Paths.get( "c:\\GFG" ))) { // print the name of directories and files with // entire path filepath.forEach(System.out::println); } // if no such directory exists throw an exception. catch (IOException e) { throw new IOException( "Directory Not Present!" ); } } } |
Output:
c:\GFG c:\GFG\article.docx c:\GFG\GFG.txt c:\GFG\numbers.txt c:\GFG\Ritik c:\GFG\Ritik\Logistics.xlsx c:\GFG\Rohan c:\GFG\Rohan\Payments.xlsx
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