[MNG-6444] Internal code should prefer Path over File

[jira-importer]

Robert Scholte opened MNG-6444 and commented

Goal is to replace all 'new File(' appearances with Path / Paths https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/nio/file/Path.html

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Issue Links:

• MNG-6071 GetResource ('/) returns 'null' if build is started with -f

• MNG-6437 Generic .uri suffix to get the URI representation of any file property
  ("is depended upon by")

[jira-importer]

Robert Scholte commented

If we don't want to break too much, we'd better require Java 8 so we can use default methods on interfaces

[jira-importer]

Michael Osipov commented

This will fix a lot of issues claude@renegat.net and me recently dicovered. I wouldn't mix Java 8 features with NIO2 because they aren't related.

[jira-importer]

Robert Scholte commented

Quite some interfaces use File, which would mean transforming Path to File (pass it to a method) to Path (and include null-checks). So removing all new File appearances seems too ambitious. With default methods such transformations might become easier. But I agree, let's do a first sweep and replace the obvious improvements.

[jira-importer]

Michael Osipov commented

We can wire all Files away with Maven 4 and maintain minimal necesary compat for a certain release. WDYT?

[jira-importer]

Robert Scholte commented

First things first. Replace most inner File creations, leave public and protected methods/fields as is.

[jira-importer]

Michael Osipov commented

Agreed.

[jira-importer]

Tibor Digana commented

Not sure if users or developers of external plugins would notice a change in internal Maven code with this improvement. Does it include changing e.g. the returned type of the call Artifact.getFile()? Because this would be benefit in the development of external plugins.

[jira-importer]

Robert Scholte commented

Changing the returnType for getFile() would break a a lot of plugins. Since it is an interface, we should add a default method getPath(), but that requires Java 8. That's out of scope for this ticket.