Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition

Name

DataInputStream

Synopsis

This class is a type of FilterInputStream that allows you to read binary representations of Java primitive data types in a portable way. Create a DataInputStream by specifying the InputStream that is to be filtered in the call to the constructor. DataInputStream reads only primitive Java types; use ObjectInputStream to read object values.

Many of the methods read and return a single Java primitive type, in binary format, from the stream. readUnsignedByte( ) and readUnsignedShort( ) read unsigned values and return them as int values, since unsigned byte and short types are not supported in Java. read( ) reads data into an array of bytes, blocking until at least some data is available. By contrast, readFully( ) reads data into an array of bytes, but blocks until all requested data becomes available. skipBytes( ) blocks until the specified number of bytes have been read and discarded. readLine( ) reads characters from the stream until it encounters a newline, a carriage return, or a newline/carriage return pair. The returned string is not terminated with a newline or carriage return. This method is deprecated as of Java 1.1; see BufferedReader for an alternative. readUTF( ) reads a string of Unicode text encoded in a slightly modified version of the UTF-8 transformation format. UTF-8 is an ASCII-compatible encoding of Unicode characters that is often used for the transmission and storage of Unicode text. This class uses a modified UTF-8 encoding ...