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

Reading and Writing Files Using Byte Streams

Java provides a number of classes and methods that allow you to read and write files. Of course, the most common types of files are disk files. In Java, all files are byte-oriented, and Java provides methods to read and write bytes from and to a file. Thus, reading and writing files using byte streams is very common. However, Java allows you to wrap a byte-oriented file stream within a character-based object, which is shown later in this chapter.

To create a byte stream linked to a file, use FileInputStream or FileOutputStream. To open a file, simply create an object of one of these classes, specifying the name of the file as an argument to the constructor. Once the file is open, you can read from ...