Virtual File System

Virtual File Systems are used to abstract different file systems in a uniform way. IntelliJ IDEA uses it for its representation of project files, and Metaborg Core uses it for uniform access to resources, regardless of where they physically live.

IntelliJ VFS

IntelliJ IDEA uses its own Virtual File System, whose main class is the VirtualFile class. It captures a snapshot of the physical file which is periodically synchronized. You can find more information here and here.

The textual content of a file is represented by a Document. More information.

A file may be part of a PSI tree. In that case the file is a PsiFile (more information) and it contains PSI elements (more information). Think of the PSI tree as a mix between an Abstract Syntax Tree and a Parse Tree, but it also extends outside the file to represent the project that contains the file.

Note

While VirtualFile has an exists() method that can be used to check whether a file exists, it’s also possible for functions such as the following to return null when the file is not found:

this.file = LocalFileSystem.getInstance().refreshAndFindFileByPath("/home/user/test.txt");

Apache VFS

Metaborg Core uses Apache Commons VFS, which despite the similar name and function is completely different from IntelliJ’s VFS. An implementation of the Apache VFS for IntelliJ resides in the org.metaborg.intellij.vfs package.

The default scheme for the implementation is intellij://, and any IntelliJ VFS virtual files are resolved to Apache VFS file objects in the intellij:// file system using the default implementation of the IIntelliJResourceService.