Java, A Beginner's Guide, 5th Edition, 5th Edition

Random-Access Files

Up to this point, we have been using sequential files, which are files that are accessed in a strictly linear fashion, one byte after another. However, Java also allows you to access the contents of a file in random order. To do this you will use RandomAccessFile, which encapsulates a random-access file. RandomAccessFile is not derived from InputStream or OutputStream. Instead, it implements the interfaces DataInput and DataOutput, which define the basic I/O methods. It also supports positioning requests—that is, you can position the file pointer within the file. The constructor that we will be using is shown here:

RandomAccessFile(String fileName, String access)

throws FileNotFoundException

Here, the name of the file is passed ...