Learning Java, 4th Edition

Chapter 12. Input/Output Facilities

In this chapter, we continue our exploration of the Java API by looking at many of the classes in the java.io and java.nio packages. These packages offer a rich set of tools for basic I/O and also provide the framework on which all file and network communication in Java is built.

Figure 12-1 shows the class hierarchy of these packages.

We’ll start by looking at the stream classes in java.io, which are subclasses of the basic InputStream, OutputStream, Reader, and Writer classes. Then we’ll examine the File class and discuss how you can read and write files using classes in java.io. We also take a quick look at data compression and serialization. Along the way, we’ll also introduce the java.nio package. The NIO, or “new” I/O, package (introduced in Java 1.4) adds significant functionality tailored for building high-performance services and in some cases simply provides newer, better APIs that can be used in place of some java.io features.