Although creating a file is generally accomplished with a single method call, it actually has several issues to consider. What should be done if the file cannot be created? What should be done if the file already exists? What should be the file's initial attributes, such as permissions? Java provides several generations of file handling facilities. The original input/output facilities, which included basic file handling, are in the package java.io. More comprehensive facilities were included in JDK 1.4 with the so called "New I/O" package java.nio (see [Oracle 2010b]). This package introduced a number of methods to handle fine-grained control of file creation.
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The ability to determine if an existing file has been opened or a new file has been created provides greater assurance that a file other than the intended file is not opened or overwritten.
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