Java How to Program, 10/e

Late Objects Version

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 The content is mainly selected (sometimes modified)
from the original slides provided by the authors of the
textbook

 Readings
 Chapter 15: Files, Streams and Object Serialization

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15.1  Introduction
15.2  Files and Streams
15.4  Sequential-Access Text Files
15.4.1 Creating a Sequential-Access Text File
15.4.2 Reading Data from a Sequential-Access Text File
15.4.4 Updating Sequential-Access Files
Optional:
15.3  Using NIO Classes and Interfaces to Get File and
Directory Information

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 Data stored in variables and arrays is temporary
 It’s lost when a local variable goes out of scope or when the
program terminates
 For long-term retention of data, computers use files.
 Computers store files on secondary storage devices

 hard disks, flash drives, DVDs and more.

 Data maintained in files is persistent data because it
exists beyond the duration of program execution.

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 Java views each file as a sequential stream of bytes
(Fig. 15.1).
 Every operating system provides a mechanism to

determine the end of a file, such as an end-of-file

marker or a count of the total bytes in the file that is
recorded in a system-maintained administrative data
structure.
 A Java program simply receives an indication from the

operating system when it reaches the end of the stream

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 File streams can be used to input and output data as bytes or
characters.
 Byte-based streams output and input data in its binary format—a
char is two bytes, an int is four bytes, a double is eight bytes,
etc.
 Character-based streams output and input data as a sequence of
characters in which every character is two bytes—the number of
bytes for a given value depends on the number of characters in that
value.
 Files created using byte-based streams are referred to as
binary files.
 Files created using character-based streams are referred to as
text files. Text files can be read by text editors.
 Binary files are read by programs that understand the
specific content of the file and the ordering of that content.

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 A Java program opens a file by creating an object and
associating a stream of bytes or characters with it.
 Can also associate streams with different devices.
 Java creates three stream objects when a program begins
executing
 System.in (standard input stream) object normally inputs bytes
from the keyboard
 Object System.out (the standard output stream object) normally
outputs character data to the screen
 Object System.err (the standard error stream object) normally
outputs character-based error messages to the screen.
 Class System provides methods setIn, setOut and
setErr to redirect the standard input, output and error
streams, respectively.

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 Java programs perform file processing by using classes
from package java.io and the subpackages of
java.nio.
 Character-based input and output can be performed

with classes Scanner and Formatter.

 Class Scanner is used extensively to input data from the
keyboard. This class can also read data from a file.
 Class Formatter enables formatted data to be output to any
text-based stream in a manner similar to method
System.out.printf.

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 Sequential-access files store records in order by the
record-key field.
 Text files are human-readable files.

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 Java imposes no structure on a file
 Notions such as records do not exist as part of the Java
language.
 You must structure files to meet the requirements of your
applications.

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 Formatter outputs formatted Strings to the
specified stream.
 The constructor with one String argument receives

the name of the file, including its path.

 If a path is not specified, the JVM assumes that the file is in
the directory from which the program was executed.
 If the file does not exist, it will be created.
 If an existing file is opened, its contents are truncated.

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 An Exception occurs when there are an error while
executing the program:
 if the user does not have permission to write data to the file.
 if the file does not exist and a new file cannot be created.
 if the data being read by a Scanner method is in the
wrong format or if there is no more data to input.
 if the Formatter is closed when you attempt to output

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 Scanner method hasNext determines whether the end-
of-file key combination has been entered.
 Formatter method format works like
System.out.printf
 Formatter method close closes the file.
 If method close is not called explicitly, the operating system
normally will close the file when program execution terminates.

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 The application (Fig. 15.6) reads records from the file
"clients.txt" created by the application of
Section 15.4.1 and displays the record contents.

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 The data in many sequential files cannot be modified
without the risk of destroying other data in the file.
 If the name “White” needed to be changed to
“Worthington,” the old name cannot simply be
overwritten, because the new name requires more space.
 Fields in a text file—and hence records—can vary in size.
 Records in a sequential-access file are not usually updated
in place. Instead, the entire file is rewritten.
 Rewriting the entire file is uneconomical to update just one
record, but reasonable if a substantial number of records
need to be updated.

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 Interfaces Path and DirectoryStream and classes
Paths and Files (all from package
java.nio.file) are useful for retrieving
information about files and directories on disk:
 Path interface—Objects of classes that implement this
interface represent the location of a file or directory. Path
objects do not open files or provide any file-processing
capabilities.
 Paths class—Provides static methods used to get a Path
object representing a file or directory location.

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 Files class—Provides static methods for common file
and directory manipulations, such as copying files; creating
and deleting files and directories; getting information about
files and directories; reading the contents of files; getting
objects that allow you to manipulate the contents of files and
directories; and more
 DirectoryStream interface—Objects of classes that
implement this interface enable a program to iterate through
the contents of a directory.

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 A file or directory’s path specifies its location on disk.
The path includes some or all of the directories leading
to the file or directory.
 An absolute path contains all directories, starting with
the root directory, that lead to a specific file or
directory.
 Every file or directory on a particular disk drive has the
same root directory in its path.
 A relative path is “relative” to another directory—for
example, a path relative to the directory in which the
application began executing.

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 An overloaded version of Files static method get uses a URI
object to locate the file or directory.
 A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a more general
form of the Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) that are
used to locate websites.
 On Windows platforms, the URI
 file://C:/data.txt
 identifies the file data.txt stored in the root directory of
the C: drive. On UNIX/Linux platforms, the URI
 file:/home/student/data.txt
 identifies the file data.txt stored in the home directory of
the user student.

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 Figure 15.2 prompts the user to enter a file or directory name,
then uses classes Paths, Path, Files and
DirectoryStream to output information about that file or
directory.

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 A separator character is used to separate directories
and files in a path.
 On a Windows computer, the separator character is a
backslash (\).
 On a Linux or Mac OS X system, it’s a forward slash (/).
 Java processes both characters identically in a path
name.
 For example, if we were to use the path
 c:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_11\demo/jfc
 which employs each separator character, Java would
still process the path properly.


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