One
of the important set of classes comprised in Java API is the java.io package. This is one of the core
packages of the Java language and was a part of JDK 1.0. These classes facilitate the input/output functionality in
our programs. Typical examples of such functionalities include:
·
Reading from the keyboard
·
Sending some output to the
console
·
Storing data in a disk file
·
Chatting with another user
using peer-to-peer networking
·
Transferring files
·
Browsing the Web, and so on.
Thus, the I/O classes are used in a wide range
of applications, including the latest innovations such as voice and video
calls, peer-to-peer gaming, and more.
Input/Output Streams
We
may not have realized this, but we have already used some functionality of I/O
classes in the previous examples. In many of our programs, we used System.out.println to output a message to
the user console. We learned earlier that:
· println
is a method executed on the out object.
· The out object is of type OutputStream,
which is an abstract class. It is the superclass of all classes representing an
output stream of bytes.
· A stream accepts bytes and
sends them to some sink
Likewise,
to read input from the user, we used the System.in.read
method.
· The in is an object of type InputStream.
· Both InputStream and OutputStream
belong to the family of I/O classes.
· The System class, which is defined in the java.lang package, contains three static fields, called in,
out, and err.
· The in is of type InputStream,
whereas out and err are of the PrintStream
type, which is a subclass of OutputStream.
Java defines the functionality of its various I/O classes through streams. A stream is an abstraction and can be thought of as a flow of data from a source to a sink.
A stream can be classified in two ways.
· A source stream, also called
an input
stream, initiates the flow of data.
· A sink stream, also called
an output
stream, terminates the flow of data.
Source
and sink streams are also called node
streams. A stream is just a continuous flow of data. Like an array that holds
some data, a stream does not have the concept of a data index. We cannot move
back and forth in a stream. The data can only be accessed sequentially.
A
stream either consumes or provides information. A stream is usually linked to a
physical device. It provides a uniform interface to a device for data flow. In
the case of an input stream, the device to which it connects may be a physical
disk, a network connection, a keyboard, and so on.
In
the case of an output stream, it may be connected to a console, a physical disk, a
network connection, and so on. Thus, when we use the input/output
stream classes, our program code becomes independent of the device to which the
stream connects. Examples of source streams are files and memory buffers. A printer
or a console can represent a stream destination.
The streams in Java are of two types:
·
Byte oriented
·
Character oriented
The byte streams operate on bytes of data, whereas the character-oriented streams operate on characters, typically a Unicode character set. JDK 1.0 provided only byte-oriented streams. JDK 1.1 introduced character-oriented streams. Because the underlying mechanism for streams is still byte oriented, JDK 1.1 also introduced bridge classes to convert a byte stream into a character stream, and vice versa.
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