Failed to delete a file in windows environment

Question

I am working in windows environment.

In my tearDown() method, deleteSucceeded is returning false.

File is never getting deleted although it is there in the desired location.

The strange thing is that:

In unix environment, the same code is working fine.

See below class:

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration(locations = { "/ServiceMockTest-context.xml" })
public class ServiceMockTest { 

private File actualSerializedObjectFile;

 @Before
 public void setUp() throws InvalidDocumentException, 
 SAXException, IOException, 
 ParserConfigurationException,  InvalidGpecConfigurationException {
 actualSerializedObjectFile = new File(OUTPUT_DIR, 
 "ServiceMockTest-" + name.getMethodName() + ".json");
 System.out.println("actualSerializedObjectFile: " 
 +  actualSerializedObjectFile.getAbsolutePath());
 }


 @After
 public void tearDown() {
     boolean deleteSucceeded = actualSerializedObjectFile.delete();
     if (!deleteSucceeded) {
         throw new RuntimeException("Failed to delete temporary 
         output file for List<Map<String,Object>> serialized 
         object: " + actualSerializedObjectFile.getAbsolutePath());
     }
 }

}

UPDATE:

I analysed this error and I found the issue is somewhere else.

When I ran the test in debug mode, the control went to the following block of code:

/**
 * Constructs a InvocationTargetException with a target exception.
 *
 * @param target the target exception
 */
public InvocationTargetException(Throwable target) {
    super((Throwable)null);  // Disallow initCause
    this.target = target;
}

And this happened just after a call to delete() method.

NOTE:

My file is not opened anywhere else so that the delete() call will not delete it as can be the case in windows environment.

ErrorLog:

java.lang.RuntimeException: Failed to delete temporary output file for List<Map<String,Object>> serialized object: E:\git\userapp\services\serializedObjects\ServiceMockTest-getSchedule.json
    at com.userapp.services.ServiceMockTest.tearDown(ServiceMockTest.java:198)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
    at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod$1.runReflectiveCall(FrameworkMethod.java:45)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.model.ReflectiveCallable.run(ReflectiveCallable.java:15)
    at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod.invokeExplosively(FrameworkMethod.java:42)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunAfters.evaluate(RunAfters.java:36)
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.RunAfterTestMethodCallbacks.evaluate(RunAfterTestMethodCallbacks.java:83)
    at org.junit.rules.TestWatcher$1.evaluate(TestWatcher.java:47)
    at org.junit.rules.RunRules.evaluate(RunRules.java:18)
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.SpringRepeat.evaluate(SpringRepeat.java:72)
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:231)
    at org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:47)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$3.run(ParentRunner.java:231)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$1.schedule(ParentRunner.java:60)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.runChildren(ParentRunner.java:229)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.access$000(ParentRunner.java:50)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$2.evaluate(ParentRunner.java:222)
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.RunBeforeTestClassCallbacks.evaluate(RunBeforeTestClassCallbacks.java:61)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunAfters.evaluate(RunAfters.java:30)
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.statements.RunAfterTestClassCallbacks.evaluate(RunAfterTestClassCallbacks.java:71)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.run(ParentRunner.java:300)
    at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.run(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:174)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestReference.run(JUnit4TestReference.java:86)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.TestExecution.run(TestExecution.java:38)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:459)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:675)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.run(RemoteTestRunner.java:382)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.main(RemoteTestRunner.java:192)

Answer 1

Closing the inputStream is required in windows environment in order to delete the file when required.

I just added inputStream.close(); before a call to delete and it worked.

This also means that in unix environment, inputStream is closed by itself once the work is done of reading a stream.

Answer 2

Windows won't let you delete a file that your application still has open, but Unix will. That's probably what is causing the difference in behaviour.