Java I/O Character Streams

In this section we will discuss the I/O Character Streams.

Java I/O Character Streams

In this section we will discuss the I/O Character Streams.

Character streams works with the characters rather than the byte. In Java characters are stored by following the Unicode (allows a unique number for every character) conventions. In such kind of storage characters becomes the platform independent, program independent, language independent. Characters storage using Unicode convention makes the Java ready for internationalization and for this Java provides the Character stream I/O. Character stream I/O is helpful for internationalization because it automatically translated the internal format to and from the local character set.

In Java to facilitate the character stream I/O the character stream classes are defined. These classes are drawn from the Reader and Writer classes. Both of these classes are abstract classes. where the Reader class is used for input (read from) and the Writer class is used for output (write to). To work with the file I/O specialized classes are the FileReader and FileWriter.

Reader : An abstract class that facilitate to take input (read) the character stream. Subclasses of this class must have to implement the read(char[], int, int) and close() methods.

public abstract class Reader extends Object implements Readable, Closeable

Method Description

• close() : This method is used to close the resource and the resource associated to the stream get released.
  
  public abstract void close() throws IOException
   
• mark(int readAheadLimit) : This method is used to mark the current position in the stream. This method operation is not supported by the all character-input stream.
  
  public void mark(int readAheadLimit) throws IOException
   
• markSupported() : This method specifies that whether the mark() operation is supported by the stream or not. Default value is false.
  
  public boolean markSupported()
  
• read() : This method is used to read the characters. It reads a single character. It returns the number of read characters in the range 0 to 65535 or -1 if it reaches the end of the stream.
  
  public int read() throws IOException
   
• read(char[] cbuf) : This method is used to read the characters. Characters are read into an array. This method returns the number of read characters or -1 if it reaches the end of stream.
  
  public int read(char[] cbuf) throws IOException
   
• read(char[] cbuf, int off, int len) : This method is used to read the characters. Characters are read into an array at specified len.
  
  public abstract int read(char[] cbuf, int off, int len) throws IOException
   
• read(CharBuffer target) : This method is used to read characters from the specified character buffer.
  
  public int read(CharBuffer target) throws IOException
   
• ready() : This method specifies that is the stream ready for reading or not.
  
  public boolean ready() throws IOException
   
• reset() : This method repositioned the stream where(if) the mark method was marked the current position in the input stream. Or reset according to the particular stream.
  
  public void reset() throws IOException
   
• skip(long n) : This method is used to skipped over the characters in the stream.
  
  public long skip(long n) throws IOException

Some subclasses of the Reader class are given into table :

Writer : An abstract class that facilitate to write character streams. Subclasses of this class must have to implement the write(char[], int, int), flush() and close() methods.

public abstract class Writer extends Object implements Appendable, Closeable, Flushable

Method Description

• append(char c) : This method adds the specified character at the end to the stream.
  
  public Writer append(char c) throws IOException
   
  
• append(CharSequence csq) : This method adds the specified character sequence at the end to the writer stream.
  
  public Writer append(CharSequence csq) throws IOException
   
• append(CharSequence csq, int start, int end) : This method is used to add the character to the writer stream in the subsequence of the character sequence.
  
  public Writer append(CharSequence csq, int start, int end) throws IOException
  
  
• close() : This method is used to close the writer stream.
  
  public abstract void close() throws IOException
   
  
• flush() : This method is used to flush the writer stream.
  
  public abstract void flush() throws IOException
   
• write(char[] cbuf) : This method is used to write the array of characters.
  
  public void write(char[] cbuf) throws IOException
   
  
• write(char[] cbuf, int off, int len) : This method is used to write the specified portion of an Array of characters.
  
  public abstract void write(char[] cbuf, int off, int len) throws IOException
   
• write(int c) : This method is used to write a single character.
  
  public void write(int c) throws IOException
   
  
• write(String str) : This method is used to write a string.
  
  public void write(String str) throws IOException
   
• write(String str, int off, int len) : This method is used to write the specified portion of string.
  
  public void write(String str, int off, int len) throws IOException

Some subclasses of Writer class are as follows :