如果你正在编写一个Maven插件，你可以使用Plexus的PathTool:

import org.codehaus.plexus.util.PathTool;

String relativeFilePath = PathTool.getRelativeFilePath(file1, file2);

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)

Psuedo-code:

使用路径分隔符("/")拆分字符串 通过迭代拆分字符串的结果来找到最大的公共路径(因此在两个示例中，您最终会得到"/var/data"或"/a") 返回“。”+ whicheverPathIsLonger.substring (commonPath.length);

我的版本大致基于马特和史蒂夫的版本:

/**
 * Returns the path of one File relative to another.
 *
 * @param target the target directory
 * @param base the base directory
 * @return target's path relative to the base directory
 * @throws IOException if an error occurs while resolving the files' canonical names
 */
 public static File getRelativeFile(File target, File base) throws IOException
 {
   String[] baseComponents = base.getCanonicalPath().split(Pattern.quote(File.separator));
   String[] targetComponents = target.getCanonicalPath().split(Pattern.quote(File.separator));

   // skip common components
   int index = 0;
   for (; index < targetComponents.length && index < baseComponents.length; ++index)
   {
     if (!targetComponents[index].equals(baseComponents[index]))
       break;
   }

   StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
   if (index != baseComponents.length)
   {
     // backtrack to base directory
     for (int i = index; i < baseComponents.length; ++i)
       result.append(".." + File.separator);
   }
   for (; index < targetComponents.length; ++index)
     result.append(targetComponents[index] + File.separator);
   if (!target.getPath().endsWith("/") && !target.getPath().endsWith("\\"))
   {
     // remove final path separator
     result.delete(result.length() - File.separator.length(), result.length());
   }
   return new File(result.toString());
 }

通过Dónal的测试，唯一的变化-如果没有公共根，它将返回目标路径(它可能已经是相对的)

import static java.util.Arrays.asList;
import static java.util.Collections.nCopies;
import static org.apache.commons.io.FilenameUtils.normalizeNoEndSeparator;
import static org.apache.commons.io.FilenameUtils.separatorsToUnix;
import static org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils.getCommonPrefix;
import static org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils.isBlank;
import static org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils.isNotEmpty;
import static org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils.join;

import java.io.File;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class ResourceUtils {

    public static String getRelativePath(String targetPath, String basePath, String pathSeparator) {
        File baseFile = new File(basePath);
        if (baseFile.isFile() || !baseFile.exists() && !basePath.endsWith("/") && !basePath.endsWith("\\"))
            basePath = baseFile.getParent();

        String target = separatorsToUnix(normalizeNoEndSeparator(targetPath));
        String base = separatorsToUnix(normalizeNoEndSeparator(basePath));

        String commonPrefix = getCommonPrefix(target, base);
        if (isBlank(commonPrefix))
            return targetPath.replaceAll("/", pathSeparator);

        target = target.replaceFirst(commonPrefix, "");
        base = base.replaceFirst(commonPrefix, "");

        List<String> result = new ArrayList<>();
        if (isNotEmpty(base))
            result.addAll(nCopies(base.split("/").length, ".."));
        result.addAll(asList(target.replaceFirst("^/", "").split("/")));

        return join(result, pathSeparator);
    }
}

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()));