从Java 7开始，你可以使用relativize方法:

import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.Paths;

public class Test {

     public static void main(String[] args) {
        Path pathAbsolute = Paths.get("/var/data/stuff/xyz.dat");
        Path pathBase = Paths.get("/var/data");
        Path pathRelative = pathBase.relativize(pathAbsolute);
        System.out.println(pathRelative);
    }

}

输出:

stuff/xyz.dat

在撰写本文时(2010年6月)，这是唯一通过我的测试用例的解决方案。我不能保证这个解决方案没有错误，但是它确实通过了包含的测试用例。我所编写的方法和测试依赖于Apache公共IO中的FilenameUtils类。

该解决方案使用Java 1.4进行了测试。如果你正在使用Java 1.5(或更高版本)，你应该考虑用StringBuilder代替StringBuffer(如果你还在使用Java 1.4，你应该考虑换一个雇主)。

import java.io.File;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;

import org.apache.commons.io.FilenameUtils;

public class ResourceUtils {

    /**
     * Get the relative path from one file to another, specifying the directory separator. 
     * If one of the provided resources does not exist, it is assumed to be a file unless it ends with '/' or
     * '\'.
     * 
     * @param targetPath targetPath is calculated to this file
     * @param basePath basePath is calculated from this file
     * @param pathSeparator directory separator. The platform default is not assumed so that we can test Unix behaviour when running on Windows (for example)
     * @return
     */
    public static String getRelativePath(String targetPath, String basePath, String pathSeparator) {

        // Normalize the paths
        String normalizedTargetPath = FilenameUtils.normalizeNoEndSeparator(targetPath);
        String normalizedBasePath = FilenameUtils.normalizeNoEndSeparator(basePath);

        // Undo the changes to the separators made by normalization
        if (pathSeparator.equals("/")) {
            normalizedTargetPath = FilenameUtils.separatorsToUnix(normalizedTargetPath);
            normalizedBasePath = FilenameUtils.separatorsToUnix(normalizedBasePath);

        } else if (pathSeparator.equals("\\")) {
            normalizedTargetPath = FilenameUtils.separatorsToWindows(normalizedTargetPath);
            normalizedBasePath = FilenameUtils.separatorsToWindows(normalizedBasePath);

        } else {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unrecognised dir separator '" + pathSeparator + "'");
        }

        String[] base = normalizedBasePath.split(Pattern.quote(pathSeparator));
        String[] target = normalizedTargetPath.split(Pattern.quote(pathSeparator));

        // First get all the common elements. Store them as a string,
        // and also count how many of them there are.
        StringBuffer common = new StringBuffer();

        int commonIndex = 0;
        while (commonIndex < target.length && commonIndex < base.length
                && target[commonIndex].equals(base[commonIndex])) {
            common.append(target[commonIndex] + pathSeparator);
            commonIndex++;
        }

        if (commonIndex == 0) {
            // No single common path element. This most
            // likely indicates differing drive letters, like C: and D:.
            // These paths cannot be relativized.
            throw new PathResolutionException("No common path element found for '" + normalizedTargetPath + "' and '" + normalizedBasePath
                    + "'");
        }   

        // The number of directories we have to backtrack depends on whether the base is a file or a dir
        // For example, the relative path from
        //
        // /foo/bar/baz/gg/ff to /foo/bar/baz
        // 
        // ".." if ff is a file
        // "../.." if ff is a directory
        //
        // The following is a heuristic to figure out if the base refers to a file or dir. It's not perfect, because
        // the resource referred to by this path may not actually exist, but it's the best I can do
        boolean baseIsFile = true;

        File baseResource = new File(normalizedBasePath);

        if (baseResource.exists()) {
            baseIsFile = baseResource.isFile();

        } else if (basePath.endsWith(pathSeparator)) {
            baseIsFile = false;
        }

        StringBuffer relative = new StringBuffer();

        if (base.length != commonIndex) {
            int numDirsUp = baseIsFile ? base.length - commonIndex - 1 : base.length - commonIndex;

            for (int i = 0; i < numDirsUp; i++) {
                relative.append(".." + pathSeparator);
            }
        }
        relative.append(normalizedTargetPath.substring(common.length()));
        return relative.toString();
    }


    static class PathResolutionException extends RuntimeException {
        PathResolutionException(String msg) {
            super(msg);
        }
    }    
}

这个通过的测试用例是

public void testGetRelativePathsUnix() {
    assertEquals("stuff/xyz.dat", ResourceUtils.getRelativePath("/var/data/stuff/xyz.dat", "/var/data/", "/"));
    assertEquals("../../b/c", ResourceUtils.getRelativePath("/a/b/c", "/a/x/y/", "/"));
    assertEquals("../../b/c", ResourceUtils.getRelativePath("/m/n/o/a/b/c", "/m/n/o/a/x/y/", "/"));
}

public void testGetRelativePathFileToFile() {
    String target = "C:\\Windows\\Boot\\Fonts\\chs_boot.ttf";
    String base = "C:\\Windows\\Speech\\Common\\sapisvr.exe";

    String relPath = ResourceUtils.getRelativePath(target, base, "\\");
    assertEquals("..\\..\\Boot\\Fonts\\chs_boot.ttf", relPath);
}

public void testGetRelativePathDirectoryToFile() {
    String target = "C:\\Windows\\Boot\\Fonts\\chs_boot.ttf";
    String base = "C:\\Windows\\Speech\\Common\\";

    String relPath = ResourceUtils.getRelativePath(target, base, "\\");
    assertEquals("..\\..\\Boot\\Fonts\\chs_boot.ttf", relPath);
}

public void testGetRelativePathFileToDirectory() {
    String target = "C:\\Windows\\Boot\\Fonts";
    String base = "C:\\Windows\\Speech\\Common\\foo.txt";

    String relPath = ResourceUtils.getRelativePath(target, base, "\\");
    assertEquals("..\\..\\Boot\\Fonts", relPath);
}

public void testGetRelativePathDirectoryToDirectory() {
    String target = "C:\\Windows\\Boot\\";
    String base = "C:\\Windows\\Speech\\Common\\";
    String expected = "..\\..\\Boot";

    String relPath = ResourceUtils.getRelativePath(target, base, "\\");
    assertEquals(expected, relPath);
}

public void testGetRelativePathDifferentDriveLetters() {
    String target = "D:\\sources\\recovery\\RecEnv.exe";
    String base = "C:\\Java\\workspace\\AcceptanceTests\\Standard test data\\geo\\";

    try {
        ResourceUtils.getRelativePath(target, base, "\\");
        fail();

    } catch (PathResolutionException ex) {
        // expected exception
    }
}

这里已经有很多答案了，但我发现他们并不能处理所有的情况，比如基地和目标是相同的。这个函数接受一个基本目录和一个目标路径，并返回相对路径。如果不存在相对路径，则返回目标路径。文件。分隔符是不必要的。

public static String getRelativePath (String baseDir, String targetPath) {
    String[] base = baseDir.replace('\\', '/').split("\\/");
    targetPath = targetPath.replace('\\', '/');
    String[] target = targetPath.split("\\/");

    // Count common elements and their length.
    int commonCount = 0, commonLength = 0, maxCount = Math.min(target.length, base.length);
    while (commonCount < maxCount) {
        String targetElement = target[commonCount];
        if (!targetElement.equals(base[commonCount])) break;
        commonCount++;
        commonLength += targetElement.length() + 1; // Directory name length plus slash.
    }
    if (commonCount == 0) return targetPath; // No common path element.

    int targetLength = targetPath.length();
    int dirsUp = base.length - commonCount;
    StringBuffer relative = new StringBuffer(dirsUp * 3 + targetLength - commonLength + 1);
    for (int i = 0; i < dirsUp; i++)
        relative.append("../");
    if (commonLength < targetLength) relative.append(targetPath.substring(commonLength));
    return relative.toString();
}

当使用java.net.URI.relativize时，你应该注意Java错误: JDK-6226081 (URI应该能够将路径与部分根相对化)

目前，URI的relativize()方法只在一个URI是另一个URI的前缀时才会相对化URI。

这本质上意味着java.net.URI.relativize将不会创建“…这是给你的。

如果你知道第二个字符串是第一个字符串的一部分:

String s1 = "/var/data/stuff/xyz.dat";
String s2 = "/var/data";
String s3 = s1.substring(s2.length());

或者，如果你真的想把句号放在开头，就像你的例子中那样:

String s3 = ".".concat(s1.substring(s2.length()));

ant有一个带有getRelativePath方法的FileUtils类。我自己还没有尝试过，但是值得一试。

http://javadoc.haefelinger.it/org.apache.ant/1.7.1/org/apache/tools/ant/util/FileUtils.html getRelativePath (java.io.File java.io.File)