How to load a http .txt file as a Java FileSystem

Question

I am studying for the Java 1.8 OCP exam and I ran across something in the Oracle study guide p.459 where it says you can load a remote URL as a FileSystem object. I tried this and can't get it to work. What is the simplest hello-world style answer to get this working?

import java.net.*;
import java.nio.file.*;
public class FileTest {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws URISyntaxException, MalformedURLException {
        FileSystem remoteFS = FileSystems.getFileSystem(
            new URI("http://www.gutenberg.org/files/55007")
        );
        Path remotePath = remoteFS.getPath("55007-0.txt");
        System.out.println(remotePath.isAbsolute());
    }
}

It throws the error:

Exception in thread "main" java.nio.file.ProviderNotFoundException: 
  Provider "http" not found
    at java.nio.file.FileSystems.getFileSystem(FileSystems.java:224)
    at qa.test.FileTest.main(FileTest.java:7)

Addendum: FileSystemProvider.installedProviders() returns

[sun.nio.fs.MacOSXFileSystemProvider@4554617c, com.sun.nio.zipfs.ZipFileSystemProvider@74a14482]

" where it says you can load a remote URL as a FileSystem object." Are you sure ? The method takes as parameter an URI and not an URL. It doesn't make no sense to provide an URL as an URL is not necessary compatible with all FileSystems. — davidxxx, Jul 02 '17 at 18:04
@davidxx Yes, the JavaDoc says it takes a URI. I followed a whole rabbit trail down Google searches and couldn't figure it out. Seems like 'http provider' would/should be built-in but it appears I need to do something special, like write a custom handler that converts the URI to a URL (among other things)? — djangofan, Jul 02 '17 at 18:15
`FileSystemProvider.installedProviders()` returns a list of installed providers. — gommb, Jul 02 '17 at 18:41

How to load a http .txt file as a Java FileSystem

0 Answers0