making the method more discoverable by having an instance method

core/src/main/java/hudson/FilePath.java

@@ -53,6 +53,7 @@ import static hudson.FilePath.TarCompression.GZIP;
 import hudson.org.apache.tools.tar.TarInputStream;
 import hudson.util.io.Archiver;
 import hudson.util.io.ArchiverFactory;
+import jenkins.util.VirtualFile;
 import org.apache.tools.ant.DirectoryScanner;
 import org.apache.tools.ant.Project;
 import org.apache.tools.ant.types.FileSet;
@@ -1041,6 +1042,13 @@ public final class FilePath implements Serializable {
         });
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Gets the {@link VirtualFile} representation of this {@link FilePath}
+     */
+    public VirtualFile toVirtualFile() {
+        return VirtualFile.forFilePath(this);
+    }
+
     /**
      * Creates this directory.
      */

core/src/main/java/hudson/model/DirectoryBrowserSupport.java

@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ public final class DirectoryBrowserSupport implements HttpResponse {
      *      False to serve "index.html"
      */
     public DirectoryBrowserSupport(ModelObject owner, FilePath base, String title, String icon, boolean serveDirIndex) {
-        this(owner, VirtualFile.forFilePath(base), title, icon, serveDirIndex);
+        this(owner, base.toVirtualFile(), title, icon, serveDirIndex);
     }
 
     /**
@@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ public final class DirectoryBrowserSupport implements HttpResponse {
      *      from the {@code doXYZ} method and let Stapler generate a response for you.
      */
     public void serveFile(StaplerRequest req, StaplerResponse rsp, FilePath root, String icon, boolean serveDirIndex) throws IOException, ServletException, InterruptedException {
-        serveFile(req, rsp, VirtualFile.forFilePath(root), icon, serveDirIndex);
+        serveFile(req, rsp, root.toVirtualFile(), icon, serveDirIndex);
     }
 
     private void serveFile(StaplerRequest req, StaplerResponse rsp, VirtualFile root, String icon, boolean serveDirIndex) throws IOException, ServletException, InterruptedException {

core/src/main/java/jenkins/util/VirtualFile.java

@@ -247,7 +247,7 @@ public abstract class VirtualFile implements Comparable<VirtualFile> {
                 }
             }
             @Override public VirtualFile getParent() {
-                return forFilePath(f.getParent());
+                return f.getParent().toVirtualFile();
             }
             @Override public boolean isDirectory() throws IOException {
                 try {