I/O Streams- Basics

Byte Streams and

Character Streams,
Reading console input
 I/O Basics
• In fact, aside from print( ) and println( ), none
of the I/O methods have been used
significantly.
• The reason is simple: most real applications of
Java are not text-based, console programs.
 I/O Basics-Cont...
• Text-based console I/O is just not very
important to Java programming.
• Java does provide strong, flexible support
for I/O as it relates to files and networks.
• Java’s I/O system is cohesive and consistent.
 I/O Basics-Cont...
• Graphically oriented programs rely upon Java’s
Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) or Swing for
interaction with the user.
• Although text-based programs are excellent as
teaching examples, they do not constitute an
important use for Java in the real world.
• Also, Java’s support for console I/O is limited and
somewhat awkward to use—even in simple
example programs.
 Streams
• Java programs perform I/O through streams.
• A stream is an abstraction that either
produces or consumes information.
• A stream is linked to a physical device by the
Java I/O system.
• All streams behave in the same manner, even
if the actual physical devices to which they are
linked differ.
 Streams-Cont...
• Thus, the same I/O classes and methods can be
applied to any type of device.
• This means that an input stream can abstract
many different kinds of input: from a
– disk file
– keyboard
– network socket
• Likewise, an output stream may refer to the
console, a disk file, or a network connection.
 Byte Streams and Character Streams

• Java defines two types of streams:

byte and character.
• Byte streams provide a convenient means for
handling input and output of bytes.
• Byte streams are used, for example, when
reading or writing binary data.
• Character streams provide a convenient means
for handling input and output of characters.
• Character streams use Unicode and, therefore, can
be internationalized.
• Unicode defines a fully international character set
that can represent all of the characters found in all
human languages. It is a unification of dozens of
character sets, such as Latin, Greek, Arabic, Cyrillic,
Hebrew, Katakana, Hangul, and many more.
• At the time of Java's creation, Unicode required 16
bits. Thus, in Java char is a 16-bit type. The range of a
char is 0 to 65,536.
• There are no negative chars.
• Also, in some cases, character streams are
more efficient than byte streams.
• The original version of Java (Java 1.0) did not
include character streams and, thus, all I/O
was byte-oriented.
• Character streams were added by Java 1.1,
and certain byte-oriented classes and
methods were deprecated.
• This is why older code that doesn’t use
character streams should be updated to take
advantage of them, where appropriate.
• One other point: at the lowest level, all I/O is
still byte-oriented.
 The Byte Stream Classes

• Byte streams are defined by using two class

hierarchies.
• At the top are two abstract classes:
InputStream and OutputStream.
• Each of these abstract classes has several
concrete subclasses that handle the differences
between various devices, such as disk files,
network connections, and even memory
buffers.
 The Byte Stream Classes-Cont...

• The byte stream classes are shown in Table

13-1.
• Remember, to use the stream classes, you
must import java.io
• The abstract classes InputStream and
OutputStream define several key methods
that the other stream classes implement.
 The Byte Stream Classes-Cont...

• Two of the most important are read( ) and

write( ), which, respectively, read and write
bytes of data.
• Both methods are declared as abstract inside
InputStream and OutputStream.
• They are overridden by derived stream
classes.
TABLE 13-1 The Byte Stream Classes
TABLE 13-1 The Byte Stream Classes-Cont...
 The Character Stream Classes

• Character streams are defined by using two class

hierarchies.
• At the top are two abstract classes, Reader and
Writer.
• These abstract classes handle Unicode character
streams.
• Java has several concrete subclasses of each of these.
• The character stream classes are shown in Table 13-2.
 The Character Stream Classes-Cont...

• The abstract classes Reader and Writer define

several key methods that the other stream
classes implement.
• Two of the most important methods are
read( ) and write( ), which read and write
characters of data, respectively.
• These methods are overridden by derived
stream classes.
Table 13-2. The Character Stream I/O Classes
Table 13-2. The Character Stream I/O Classes-
Cont...
 The Predefined Streams

• As you know, all Java programs automatically

import the java.lang package.
• This package defines a class called System,
which encapsulates several aspects of the run-
time environment.
• For example, using some of its methods, you
can obtain the current time and the settings of
various properties associated with the system.
 The Predefined Streams-Cont...

• System also contains three predefined stream

variables: in, out, and err.
• These fields are declared as public, static, and
final within System.
• This means that they can be used by any other
part of your program and without reference to
a specific System object.
 The Predefined Streams-Cont...

• System.out refers to the standard output

stream. By default, this is the console.
• System.in refers to standard input, which is
the keyboard by default.
• System.err refers to the standard error
stream, which also is the console by default.
• However, these streams may be redirected to
any compatible I/O device.
 The Predefined Streams-Cont...

• System.in is an object of type InputStream;

System.out and System.err are objects of type
PrintStream.
• These are byte streams, even though they
typically are used to read and write
characters from and to the console.
• As you will see, you can wrap these within
characterbased streams, if desired.
 Reading Console Input
• In Java, console input is accomplished by
reading from System.in.
• To obtain a characterbased stream that is
attached to the console,
wrap System.in in a BufferedReader object.
• BufferedReader supports a buffered input
stream.
• Its most commonly used constructor is shown
here:
BufferedReader(Reader inputReader)
• Here, inputReader is the stream that is linked
to the instance of BufferedReader that is being
created.
• Reader is an abstract class.
• One of its concrete subclasses is
InputStreamReader,
which converts bytes to characters.
• To obtain an InputStreamReader object that is
linked to System.in, use the following
constructor:
InputStreamReader(InputStream inputStream)
• Because System.in refers to an object of type
InputStream, it can be used for inputStream.
• Putting it all together, the following line of code
creates a BufferedReader that is connected to the
keyboard:
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new
InputStreamReader(System.in));

After this statement executes, br is a character-based

stream that is linked to the console through
System.in.
 Reading Characters
• To read a character from a BufferedReader, use
read( ).
• The version of read( ) that we will be using is
int read( ) throws IOException Each time that
read( ) is called, it reads a character from the
input stream and returns it as an integer value. It
returns –1 when the end of the stream is
encountered.
• As you can see, it can throw an IOException
 Reading Characters-Cont…
• The following program demonstrates read( )
by reading characters from the console until
the user types a "q.” Notice that any I/O
exceptions that might be generated are simply
thrown out of main( ).
• Such an approach is common when reading
from the console, but you can handle these
types of errors yourself, if you chose.
LTC: Use a BufferedReader to read characters
from the console
// Use a BufferedReader to read characters
//from the console.
import java.io.*;
class BRRead {
public static void main(String args[])
throws IOException
{
char c;
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new
InputStreamReader(System.in));
System.out.println("Enter characters, 'q' to
quit.");
// read characters
do {
c = (char) br.read();
System.out.println(c);
} while(c != 'q');
}
}
 Reading Characters-Cont…
Here is a sample run:
Enter characters, 'q' to quit.
123abcq
1
2
3
a
b
c
q
 Reading Characters-Cont…
• This output may look a little different from
what you expected,
because System.in is linebuffered, by default.
• This means that no input is actually passed to
the program until you press ENTER.
• As you can guess, this does not make read( )
particularly valuable for interactive console
input.
 Reading Strings
• To read a string from the keyboard, use the
version of readLine( ) that is a member of the
BufferedReader class.
• Its general form is shown here:
String readLine( ) throws IOException
• As you can see, it returns a String object.
 LTC: Program to read a string from console
using a BufferedReader
The following program demonstrates BufferedReader
and the readLine( ) method;
The program reads and displays lines of text until
you enter the word “stop”:
import java.io.*;
class BRReadLines {
public static void main(String args[])
throws IOException
{
// create a BufferedReader using System.in
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new
InputStreamReader(System.in));
String str;
System.out.println("Enter lines of text.");
System.out.println("Enter 'stop' to quit.");
do {
str = br.readLine();
System.out.println(str);
} while(!str.equals("stop"));
}
}

End of session