Salale University

Computer Science Program

Advanced Programming
(CoSc 3053)
 Chapter Four
Streams and File I/O

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 Objectives
 In this chapter you will learn:
 To create, read, write and update files.
 To use class File to retrieve information about files and
directories.
 The difference between text and binary files
 Save data, including objects, in a file
 Read data, including objects, in a file
 To use a JFileChooser dialog.

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 Introduction
 Data stored in variables, arrays, and objects are temporary.
 To permanently store the data created in a program, you need to
save them in a file on a secondary storage device.
 Computers use files for long-term retention of large amounts of
data.
 We refer to data maintained in files as persistent data.
 In this chapter, we discuss Java’s powerful file-processing and
stream input/output features.

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 Data Hierarchy
 Bit - smallest data item in a computer
 character set is the set of all the characters used to write programs
and represent data items(Digits, letters and special symbols).
 Characters in Java are Unicode characters composed of two bytes.
 Fields are composed of characters or bytes(E.g. Name)
 Record is a group of related fields (E.g Id, name, sex, etc for
employee record)
 A file is a group of related records. E.g all employee records of an
organization.
 Database – group of related files.

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6
 Files and Streams
 Java views each file as a sequential stream of bytes.
 The term “stream” refers to ordered data that is read from or
written to a file.
 File streams can be used to input and output data as either
characters or bytes.
 Streams that input and output characters to files are known as
character-based streams.
 Streams that input and output bytes to files are known as byte-
based streams.

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Files and Streams (cont’d)
 Files created using character-based streams are referred to as
text files.
 Files that are created using byte-based streams are referred to as
binary files.
 Text files can be read by text editors, while binary files are read
by a program that converts the data to a human-readable format.

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 Class File
 Useful for retrieving information about files or directories from
disk.
 Objects of class File do not open files or provide any file-
processing capabilities.
 However, File objects are used frequently with objects of other
java.io classes to specify files or directories to manipulate.
 Creating File Objects
 public File( String name )
 specifies the name of a file or directory to associate with
the File object.

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Class File (cont’d)
Example
import java.io.File;
public class TestFileClass {
public static void main(String[] args) {
File file = new File(“D:/welcome.java");
System.out.println("Does it exist? "+ file.exists() );
System.out.println("The file has " + file.length() + " bytes");
System.out.println("Can it be read? " + file.canRead());
System.out.println("Can it be written? " + file.canWrite());
System.out.println("Is it a directory? " + file.isDirectory());
System.out.println("Is it a file? " + file.isFile());
System.out.println("Is it absolute? " + file.isAbsolute());
System.out.println("Is it hidden? " + file.isHidden());
System.out.println("Name of the file? " + file.getName());
System.out.println("Parent Directory? " + file.getParent());
System.out.println("Absolute path is " +
file.getAbsolutePath());
System.out.println("Last modified on " +
new java.util.Date(file.lastModified()));
}
}

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File Input and Output

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File Input and Output (cont’d)
 Example
import java.io.*;
public class WriteData {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
File file = new File("score.txt");
if (file.exists()) {
System.out.println("File already exists");
System.exit(0);
}
// Create a file
PrintWriter output = new PrintWriter(file);
//Write formatted output to the file
output.print("John");
output.println(24);
output.print("Eric");
output.println(85);
// Close the file
output.close();
}
}

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File Input and Output (cont’d)
 Reading Data Using Scanner
 To read from a file, create a Scanner for a file, as follows:
 Scanner input = new Scanner(new File(filename));

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File Input and Output (cont’d)
Example 1
import java.io.File;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class ReadData {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
File file = new File("score.txt");
if (file.exists()) {
// Create a Scanner for the file
Scanner input = new Scanner(file);
while (input.hasNext()) {
String firstName = input.next();
String age = input.next();
String lastName = input.next();
int score = input.nextInt();
System.out.println(firstName + " " + mi + " " + lastName + " " + score);
}

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File Input and Output (cont’d)
//close the file
input.close();
}
else{
System.out.println("File does not exist");
}

}
}

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Binary I/O

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 Text I/O vs. Binary I/O
 Computers do not differentiate binary files and text files.
 All files are stored in binary format, and thus all files are
essentially binary files.
 Encoding and decoding are automatically performed for text I/O.

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Text I/O vs. Binary I/O (cont’d)

 The program receives data through an input object and sends

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Text I/O vs. Binary I/O (cont’d)

a) Text I/O

b) Binary I/O

Text I/O requires encoding and decoding,

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Text I/O vs. Binary I/O (cont’d)
 Binary I/O is more efficient than text I/O, because binary I/O
does not require encoding and decoding.
 Binary files are independent of the encoding scheme on the host
machine and thus are portable.
 Java programs on any machine can read a binary file created by a
Java program.
 This is why Java class files are binary files. Java class files can
run on a JVM on any machine.

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 FileInputStream/FileOutputStream
 FileInputStream/FileOutputStream is for reading/writing bytes
from/to files.
 A java.io.FileNotFoundException will occur if you attempt to
create a FileInputStream with a nonexistent file.
 Example

import java.io.*;
public class TestFileStream {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
// Create an output stream to the file
FileOutputStream output = new FileOutputStream("temp.dat",
true); //If append is true, data are appended to the existing file.

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FileInputStream/FileOutputStream(cont’d)
// Output values to the file
for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++)
output.write(i);
// Close the output stream
output.close();
// Create an input stream for the file
FileInputStream input = new FileInputStream("temp.dat");
// Read values from the file
int value;
while ((value = input.read()) != -1)
System.out.print(value + " ");

// Close the input stream

}
}

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 Random-Access Files
 Java provides the RandomAccessFile class to allow a file to be
read from and written to at random locations.
 When creating a RandomAccessFile, you can specify one of two
modes
 Mode “r” means that the stream is read-only,
 and mode “rw” indicates that the stream allows both read and
write.
 A random-access file consists of a sequence of bytes.
 A special marker called a file pointer is positioned at one of these
bytes.
 A read or write operation takes place at the location of the file
pointer.

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 Random-Access Files (cont’d)
 Example:
 If you read an int value using readInt(), the JVM reads 4 bytes from
the file pointer, and now the file pointer is 4 bytes ahead of the
previous location, as shown in Figure.

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 Random-Access Files(cont’d)
Example
import java.io.*;
public class TestRandomAccessFile {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
// Create a random access file
RandomAccessFile inout = new RandomAccessFile("inout.dat", "rw");
// Write new integers to the file
for (int i = 0; i < 200; i++)
inout.writeInt(i);
// Display the current length of the file
System.out.println("Current file length is " + inout.length());
// Retrieve the first number
inout.seek(0); // Move the file pointer to the beginning
System.out.println("The first number is " + inout.readInt());

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 Random-Access Files(cont’d)
// Retrieve the second number
inout.seek(1*4); // Move the file pointer to the second number
System.out.println("The second number is " + inout.readInt());
// Retrieve the tenth number
inout.seek(9*4); // Move the file pointer to the tenth number
System.out.println("The tenth number is " + inout.readInt());
// Modify the eleventh number
inout.writeInt(555);
// Append a new number
inout.seek(inout.length()); // Move the file pointer to the end
inout.writeInt(999);
// Display the new length
System.out.println("The new length is " + inout.length());
// Retrieve the new eleventh number
inout.seek(10 * 4); // Move the file pointer to the eleventh number
System.out.println("The eleventh number is " + inout.readInt());
inout.close();
}
}

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