Sun Certification Training Guide (310-025, 310-027): Java™ 2 Programmer and Developer Exams

The java.io Class Hierarchy

Figure 15.1 identifies the java.io class hierarchy. As described in the previous section, the InputStream, OutputStream, Reader, and Writer classes are the major components of this hierarchy. Other high-level classes include the File, FileDescriptor, RandomAccessFile, ObjectStreamClass, and StreamTokenizer classes.

Figure 15.1. The classes of the java.io hierarchy.

The InputStream and OutputStream classes have complementary subclasses. For example, both have subclasses for performing I/O via memory buffers, files, and pipes. The InputStream subclasses perform the input, and the OutputStream classes perform the output. ...