FileWriter in Java

The FileWriter class in Java is used to write character/text data to the file/console/network. It is defined in java.io package and it is a subclass of OutputStreamWriter. The OutputStreamWriter class is a subclass of the Writer class. Both OutputStreamWriter and Writer classes are abstract classes.

public class FileWriter
extends OutputStreamWriter

Constructors

Since FileWriter is a connection based, where one end is Java application and another end is a File. We must always pass the file information to the constructor. Therefore, it doesn’t contain 0 parameter constructor.

Constructors available in FileWriter class are,

• public FileWriter(String fileName) throws IOException
• public FileWriter(File file) throws IOException
• public FileWriter(FileDescriptor fd)
• public FileWriter(String fileName, boolean append) throws IOException
• public FileWriter(File file, boolean append) throws IOException

The constructors which are having only one parameter are used to write data to the file in override mode. The new data will be from the beginning of the file.

The remaining constructors have two parameters that accept append value as true or false. If we pass true then the file will be connected in appended mode and data will be written from the end of the file rather than the beginning. But if we pass false then it is similar to the one-parameter constructors i.e. data will be written from the beginning of the file.

If the destination file isn’t already available then all the constructors will create the file itself. To create a new file it uses Java File class. See- Java program to create files and directories.

The new added constructor in Java 11 version are,

• public FileWriter(String fileName, Charset charset) throws IOException
• public FileWriter(String fileName, Charset charset, boolean append) throws IOException
• public FileWriter(File file, Charset charset) throws IOException
• public FileWriter(File file, Charset charset, boolean append) throws IOException

Java FileWriter Class Methods

FileWriter class itself doesn’t contain any method, all methods are inherited either from super class or from the interfaces. See:- Writer class methods

Methods to write the data are given below. Since all overloaded forms of write method are given to write the data so their return type is void.

Method	Description
write(int c)	It writes a single character at a time.
write(char cbuf[])	It writes an array of characters.
write(char[] ch, int off, int len)	It writes a portion of an array of characters.
write(String str)	It writes a string.
write(String str, int off, int len)	It writes a portion of a string.

Other important methods are,

Return type	Method	Description
void	flush()	It flushes the stream.
void	close()	It closes the stream, flushing it first

FileWriter Java Example

Now, let us develop a simple Java program to demonstrate the different write() methods of FileWriter class,

import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
public class FileWriterDemo {
   public static void main(String[] args) 
                       throws IOException {

      // create FileWriter object
      FileWriter fw = new FileWriter("output.txt");

      // write data
      fw.write('a');
      fw.write(98);
      fw.write("Welcome to Java programming");
      char ch[] = {'x','y','z'};
      fw.write(ch);

      // display some message
      System.out.println("Data saved to output.txt");

      // close connection
      fw.close();
   }
}

Output:-
Data saved to output.txt

Data in output.txt,
abWelcome to Java programmingxyz

Whenever close() method is invoked on the FileWriter class object then first it call the flush() method to flush the stream and then closes the connection, release the resources.

Newline in Java Filewriter

FileWriter writes data to the file in a single line. To place a new line we have to use some special character. Which is varied from system to system. Note:- If the below program doesn’t work on your computer then don’t worry, read the limitation of FileWriter given at the end.

import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
public class FileWriterDemo {
   public static void main(String[] args) 
                       throws IOException {
      FileWriter fw = new FileWriter("output.txt");
      fw.write('a');
      fw.write(98);

      fw.write('\n'); // for new line
      fw.write("Welcome to Java programming");

      fw.write('\n');
      char ch[] = {'x','y','z'};
      fw.write(ch);

      System.out.println("Data saved to output.txt");
      fw.close();
   }
}

Now, data in output.txt is:-
ab
Welcome to Java programming
xyz

Filewriter Append

Some constructors like FileWriter(String fileName) and FileWriter(File file) are meant for overriding of the existing data on the file. If we run the previous program multiple times then data in output.txt will be overridden i.e. new data will be written from the beginning of the file.

Instead of overriding the data, if we want to append i.e write data from the end of the file then we must use a constructor that accepts boolean values “true”. For append operation, In these constructors pass boolean value true as the second parameter. If we pass false then the file will be overridden and it is equal to calling one parameter constructor.

FileWriter fw = new FileWriter("output.txt", true);

Now file will opened in append mode, and on every execution data be written from end of file rather than beginning of file.

Limitations of FileWriter class

1) The main problem with the FileWriter is, we have to insert a line separator or new line manually, which is varied from system to system and it is a burden to the programmer. We can solve this problem using BufferedWriter and PrintWriter classes.

2) Using FileWriter class we can write data only to the file not to the console, because it doesn’t contain any constructor which can connect with any Streams.

3) We can’t write primitive data directly, we must convert them to String. For example:- if we want to write data 100 to the file then we must pass “100” as String. If we pass 100 directly then it will be stored as character ‘d’.

fw.write(100); // 'd'
fw.write("100"); // 100
fw.write(10.5); // error
fw.write("10.5"); // 10.5
fw.write(true); // error
fw.write("true"); // true

To solve these problems we can use the PrintWriter class. PrintWriter class is the most enhanced way to write character or text data to the file. It has a method to write primitive values directly with or without a new line.

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