Course Title: Java Programming.

Credit Hour: 3 hrs.

ECTS: 5 [2 Lecture , 3 Lab and 2 Tutorial Hours]
Lecture Schedule: Every _____________

Bedasa Wayessa

Java Programming CoSc3053 1

 Chapter 4
Streams and File I/O

Java Programming CoSc3053 2

Chapter Outline
 Input output streams
– Various stream classes
– Using Streams
– Object Streams
 File management

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 Streams
 Java I/O stream is the flow of data that you can either read from, or
you can write to.
 It is used to perform read and write operations in file permanently.
 A stream is a sequence of bits of information that is passed along a
virtual path between a source and a destination.
 An Input Stream provides a path from a source to a program.
 An Output Stream is a path from a program to a destination.
 Sources and destinations of information can be
– files, disks and networked resources.
 Java uses streams to perform these tasks.
 Java I/O stream is also called File Handling, or File I/O.

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 Streams
 Java.io package provides classes for system input and output through files,
network streams, memory buffers, etc.

 Some input-output stream will be initialized automatically by the JVM and these
streams are available in System class as in, out, and err variable.
– In reference refers to the default input device, i.e. keyboard.
– Out and err refers to the default output device, i.e. console.
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 Streams
 Streams are the sequence of bits(data).
 There are two types of streams:
1. Input Streams
 Used to read the data from various input devices like
keyboard, file, network, etc.
 That provides input to a program
 System.in is an input stream
2. Output Streams
 used to write the data to various output devices like monitor,
file, network, etc.
 That accepts output from a program
 System.out is an output stream
Java Programming CoSc3053 6
 Streams
 Streams based on data
 There are two types of streams based on data:
1. Byte Stream: used to read or write byte data.
2. Character Stream: used to read or write character data.
 Reading from an Input Stream

 Writing to an Output Stream

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 Streams
1. Byte Input Stream:
 These are used to read byte data from various input devices.
 InputStream is an abstract class and it is the super class of all the
input byte streams.
 List of Byte Input Streams:
 FileInputStream
 FilterInputStream
 DataInputStream
 BufferedInputStream
 ObjectInputStream
 ByteArrayInputStream

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 Streams
1. Byte Output Stream:
 These are used to write byte data to various output devices.
 OutputStream is an abstract class and it is the superclass for all
the output byte streams.
 List of Byte Output Streams:
 FileOutputStream
 FilterOutputStream
 DataOutputStream
 BufferedOutputStream
 ObjectOutputStream
 ByteArrayOutputStream

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 Streams
 Byte Input and Output Stream:

InputStream, OutputStream, and their subclasses are for

performing binary I/O.
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 Streams
 Byte Input and Output Stream:

• The abstract InputStream class • The abstract OutputStream

defines the methods for the input class defines the methods for the

stream of bytes. output stream of bytes.

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 Byte Streams…
 Example
public class InputOutput {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException
{
FileInputStream fis = null;
int n=0;
try {
fis= new FileInputStream("c:\\exmpl.txt");
while((n=fis.read())!=-1) {
System.out.print((char)n);
}
}catch(Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}finally {
try {
fis.close();
}catch(Exception e) {
System.out.println(e);
}
}

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 Streams
2. Character Input Stream:
– These are used to read char data from various input devices.
– Reader is an abstract class and is the super class for all the
character input streams.
– List of Character Reader Streams:
• CharArrayReader
• BufferedReader
• FilterReader
– FileReader
• InputStreamReader
• StringReader
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 Streams
2. Character Output Stream:
– These are used to write char data to various output devices.
– Writer is an abstract class and is the super class of all the
character output streams.
– List of Character Writer Streams:
• CharArrayWriter
• BufferedWriter
• PrintWriter
• OutputStreamReader
– FileWriter
• FilterWriter
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 Streams…
 Example: Character Stream
public class ReadFileDemo {

public static void main(String[] args) {

BufferedReader br = null;
BufferedReader br2 = null;

try{
br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(“B:\\myfile.txt”));
String contentLine = br.readLine();
while (contentLine != null) {
System.out.println(contentLine);
contentLine = br.readLine();}
}

catch (IOException ioe) {

ioe.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

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 Using Streams
 A general algorithm for using streams for I/O in an application can be
expressed as follows:
1. Instantiate a stream object: this automatically opens the stream.
2. Read from or write to the stream in a try block.
3. Catch IOException objects (and any other exceptions that may
occur).
4. Close the stream.

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 Object Streams
 Object streams are typically used in an application when live
objects are required to be written to a byte stream and either saved
to a local file or transferred across a network to a remote host.
 An ObjectOutputStream and ObjectInputStream object writes
to a stream and read from the stream.
 The process of translating an object into a stream of bytes is known
as serialization.
 The reverse process of reconstituting an object from an input stream
is known as deserialization.
 The term ‘serialization’ is usually used to describe the overall process
of serialization and deserialization.
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 Object Streams…
 The following example shows the usage
of java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject() method.

public static void main(String[] args) {

String s = "Hello World";

byte[] b = {'e', 'x', 'a', 'm', 'p', 'l', 'e'};

try {
// create a new file with an ObjectOutputStream
FileOutputStream out =new FileOutputStream(“E:\\test.txt");
ObjectOutputStream oout = new ObjectOutputStream(out);

// write something in the file

oout.writeObject(s);
oout.writeObject(b);
oout.flush();

// create an ObjectInputStream for the file we created before

ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(new
FileInputStream(“E:\\test.txt"));
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 Object Streams…
// read and print an object and cast it as string
System.out.println(""+ (String) ois.readObject());

// read and print an object and cast it as string

byte[] read = (byte[]) ois.readObject();

String s2 = new String(read);

System.out.println("" + s2);

}
catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}

When you compile and run the above program, it will produce
the following result:
Hello World
example

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 Screen Output
 To output the results of test classes to a computer’s screen we use
the statement
System.out.println( <parameter> );
 The System class includes a number of fields that are used for input
and output.
 The static field with the identifier out provides an output stream of
the PrintStream type.
 The stream is automatically open and is ready to accept output data.
 The class PrintStream inherits from a subclass of OutputStream.

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 Screen Output…
 A PrintStream object adds functionality to its parent output stream,
so that it can print primitive data to the console.
 All characters printed by a PrintSteam object are converted into
bytes using the platform's default character encoding.
 One interesting and convenient feature of PrintStream objects is
that they never throw an IOException.

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 Standard Streams
 All the programming languages provide support for standard I/O
– where user's program can take input from a keyboard and
– then produce output on the computer screen.
 If you are aware if C or C++ programming languages, then you must be
aware of three standard devices STDIN, STDOUT and STDERR.
 Similar way Java provides following three standard streams
– Standard Input:
• System.in
– Standard Output:
• System.out
– Standard Error:
• System.err
Java Programming CoSc3053 22
 Standard Streams
 Similar way Java provides following three standard streams
– Standard Input:
• This is used to feed the data to user's program and usually a
keyboard is used as standard input stream and represented as
System.in.
– Standard Output:
• This is used to output the data produced by the user's program and
usually a computer screen is used to standard output stream and
represented as System.out.
– Standard Error:
• This is used to output the error data produced by the user's
program and usually a computer screen is used to standard error
stream and represented as System.err.
Java Programming CoSc3053 23
 Standard Streams
 Following is a simple program which creates InputStreamReader to read standard
input stream until the user types a "q":
import java.io.*;
public class ReadConsole {
public static void main(String args[]) throws IOException {
InputStreamReader cin = null;
try {
cin = new InputStreamReader(System.in);
System.out.println("Enter characters, 'q' to quit.");
char c;
do {
c = (char) cin.read();
System.out.print(c);
}while(c != 'q’);
}finally {
if(cin != null) {
cin.close();
}
}
}
}

Java Programming CoSc3053 24

 Screen Output…
 Standalone Java applications, such as those that use a dedicated main
method for testing purposes, write a line of output as follows:
System.out.println( data );
 The print and println methods of the PrintStream class are overloaded for
primitive data types.
 If an object reference is passed to any of the variants of print or println, as in
System.out.println( objectReference );
 The println method calls String.valueOf ( objectReference) to
return the object’s String value.
 Invoking toString on an object reference returns what is known as the
String representation of the object.

Java Programming CoSc3053 25

 Keyboard Input
 The static field with the identifier in of the System class is an
InputStream object that can be used for keyboard input.
 Given that InputStream is an abstract class, an appropriate subclass is
automatically instantiated when accessing the in field of System.
 This stream is already open and ready to supply input data.
 The InputStream class has a read method that reads a byte of data
and returns an int in the range 0 to 255.
 The int is cast to convert it to a char.
 The following example shows how a byte is entered via the
computer’s keyboard and output to the computer’s screen.

Java Programming CoSc3053 26

 Keyboard Input…
 Example:
public static void main( String[ ] args ) {
try{
System.out.print( "Please press any key: " );
char key = ( char )System.in.read( );
System.out.print( "The key pressed was: " + key );
System.out.println( "The class is: " + System.in.toString( ) );
}catch( IOException ioe ){
// do something about the exception
}
} // end of main

Output will be: Please press any key: a

The key pressed was: a
The class is: java.io.BufferedInputStream@3e25a5

Java Programming CoSc3053 27

 Keyboard Input…
 The output shows that selecting System.in. toString( ) returns the object
reference of the object that is automatically instantiated when referring to
System.in and shows that the object is of the type
BufferedInputStream.
 We can conclude, therefore, that selecting System.in instantiates an object of
the BufferedInputStream type and closes the stream when it has been
finished with.
 Using System.in.read is not a particularly useful way to input data from the
computer’s keyboard.
 As an alternative, a number of streams can be chained together in order to
read characters and strings and numbers from the keyboard.

Java Programming CoSc3053 28

 Keyboard Input…
 String Input via the Keyboard
– The following class chains three streams in order to read characters from
the keyboard.
– Firstly, System. In is the byte stream that is used for keyboard input.
– Secondly, System. in is connected to a stream of the InputStreamReader
type to act as a bridge between the byte stream and a character stream.
– Thirdly, a buffer is required because keyboard input tends to be irregular.
– Therefore, the InputStreamReader is connected to a buffer of the
BufferedReader type.
– The readLine method of BufferedReader reads, in the example below, a set
of characters from the keyboard.
– When the enter key is pressed, the method returns a String.
– Chaining the three streams together is achieved by passing one stream
object to the constructor of the next stream in the chain.

Java Programming CoSc3053 29

 Keyboard Input…
 Example:
import java.io.*;
public class KeyboardInput {
public static void main( String[ ] args ) {

// Instantiate a bridge stream and pass the object instantiated by

//System.in to its constructor.

InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader( System.in );

// Instantiate a buffered stream and pass the I nputSt reamReader to its
//constructor.

BufferedReader kbd = new BufferedReader( isr );

try{
System.out.print( "Enter some characters and press return when finished: " );
Java Programming CoSc3053 30
 Keyboard Input…
String s = kbd.readLine( );
System.out.println( "The String was: " + s );

// Close the initial stream; this will close all streams connected to it.
kbd.close( );
}catch( IOException e ){
e.printStackTrace( );}
} // end of main
} // end of class definition
The result of executing main is:
Enter some characters and press return when finished: Hello World
The String was: Hello World

Java Programming CoSc3053 31

 Keyboard Input…
 Numerical Input via the Keyboard
import java.io.*;
public class ReadInt {
public static void main( String[ ] args ) {
try{
BufferedReader kbd = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader(
System.in ) );
System.out.print( "Enter an integer: " );
String intStr = kbd.readLine( );
// Convert the String into its corresponding integer by calling one
// of the methods of the Integer wrapper class.
int number = Integer.parseInt( intStr );
System.out.println( "The number is " + number );

Java Programming CoSc3053 32

 Keyboard Input…
} catch( IOException ioe ) {
// do something about it
}
} //End of main.
} // End of class definition.

The result of executing main is as follows:

Enter an integer: 123
The number is 123
The class definition shown on the next page shows a similar way to enter a double
into a program from the keyboard.

Java Programming CoSc3053 33

 Files and File I /O
 File objects and file streams are useful when an application needs to
write data to a file and read data from a file, where the file (or files)
are used for persistent data associated with the application.
 The activities associated with files and file I/O involves the following
tasks:-
– Creating file objects;
– Using utilities for file objects;
– Reading and writing with file streams.

Java Programming CoSc3053 34

 Creating File Objects
 An instance of the File class is an abstract representation of the path name of
a file and may or may not represent an existing file.
 For example, the following class definition compiles whether the file exists or
not.
import java.io.File;
public class Files {
public static void main( String[ ] args ) {
File myFile = new File( "C:\\myfile.txt" );
} // end of main
} // end of class definition
If the file does not exist at the path specified and if the file object with the
reference myFile is selected in subsequent code, a FileNotFoundException is
thrown.
Java Programming CoSc3053 35
 File Tests and Utilities
 If the file does exist, there are several tests and utilities that are
available as methods of the File class.
 The class that follows illustrates some of these tests and utilities.
import java.io.File;
public class Files {
public static void main( String[ ] args ) {
File myFile = new File( "C:\\myfile.txt" );
System.out.println( myFile.getName( ) );
System.out.println( myFile.getPath( ) );
System.out.println( myFile.exists( ) );
} // end of main
} // end of class definition
Java Programming CoSc3053 36
Reading and Writing with File Stream Classes
 The File streams –
– FileInputStream and FileOutputStream – and
 File readers/writers –
– FileReader and FileWriter
– are used to read from and write to a file.
 A FileReader object can be used to read character streams.
 A BufferedReader object is connected to the FileReader object
used so that its readLine method can be invoked.

Java Programming CoSc3053 37

Reading and Writing with File Stream Classes
 Example:
import java.io.*;
public class FileRead {
public static void main( String[ ] args ) {
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader (new FileReader(
"c:\\myfile.txt" ) );
String inStr = br.readLine( );
System.out.println( "The contents of the file are: " + inStr );
} // end of main
} // end of class definition
Executing main displays the contents of the existing file named myfile.txt, as
follows:
The contents of the file are: Hello World
Java Programming CoSc3053 38
Reading and Writing with File Stream Classes
 Similarly a FileInputStream object can be used to read a byte stream, as
illustrated by the code below:
import java.io.*;
public class FileRead {
public static void main( String[ ] args ) throws IOException {
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream( "c:\\myfile.txt" );
InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader( fis );
BufferedReader br= new BufferedReader( isr );
String s = br.readLine( );
System.out.println( "The contents of the file are: " + s );
} // end of main
} // end of class definition
Executing main displays the contents of the same file named myf ile.txt , as follows:
The contents of the file are: Hello World

Java Programming CoSc3053 39

 Data Streams
 Data streams are used to transmit the binary data of primitive data types.
 A DataInputStream object reads primitive data types from an underlying
input stream.
 a DataOutputStream object writes primitive data types to an output
stream.
 An application can use data streams in tandem so that a data output stream
writes data that can be subsequently read back in to the application by a data
input stream.
 The example that follows is a simple illustration of the use of a pair of data
streams. The output data stream writes an int value to a file and the input
data stream reads the value back in and outputs it to the screen.

Java Programming CoSc3053 40

 Data Streams…
 Example:
import java.io.*;
public class DataStreams {
public static void main( String[ ] args ) {
// Declare local variables.
DataOutputStream out = null;
DataInputStream in = null;
try {
FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream("C:\\mydatafile.dat");
out = new DataOutputStream( new BufferedOutputStream( fos ) );
// write out an int
out.writeInt( 1234 );
out.close( );
Java Programming CoSc3053 41
 Data Streams…
} catch( IOException e ) { }
try {
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream( "C:\\mydatafile.dat" );
in = new DataInputStream( new BufferedInputStream( fis ) );
// read in the int that was previously written out
int i = in.readInt( );
in.close( );
System.out.println( "The file contents are: " + i );
}
catch( EOFException e ) { }
catch( FileNotFoundException f ) { }
catch( IOException io ) { }
} // end of main
} // end of class definition
Java Programming CoSc3053 42
 Data Streams…
 It should be noted that the writeInt method matches the readInt
method in the class above.
 In general,
– write and read methods used to write and read primitive data
types are matched in this way.
 A further point to note is that the DataInputStream object has a very
convenient way to detect the end of the file that it is reading.
 Its read methods catch an EOFException exception instead of
testing for the return of an invalid value of the primitive being read.

Java Programming CoSc3053 43

 End of Chapter 4
Next: Multi-threading concept

Java Programming CoSc3053 49