Java Programming Course

IO
Session objectives

 What is an I/O stream?

 Types of Streams
 Stream class hierarchy
 Control flow of an I/O operation
using Streams
 Byte streams
 Character streams
 Buffered streams
 Standard I/O streams
 Data streams
 Object streams
 File class

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I/O stream

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I/O Streams

• An I/O Stream represents an input source or an output

destination.
• A stream can represent many different kinds of sources and
destinations, including disk files, devices, other programs, and
memory arrays.
• Streams support many different kinds of data
o simple bytes, primitive data types, localized characters, and objects.

• Some streams simply pass on data; others manipulate and

transform the data in useful ways.

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I/O Streams

A stream is a sequence of data.

• A program uses an input stream to read data from a source, one
item at a time:

• A program uses an output stream to write data to a destination,

one item at time:

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Types of Streams

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General Stream Types

• Character and Byte Streams

• Input and Output Streams

• Based on source or destination

• Node and Filter Streams

• Whether the data on a stream is manipulated or transformed or

not.

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Character and Byte Streams

• Byte streams
o For binary data
o Root classes for byte streams:
• The InputStream Class
• The OutputStream Class
• Both classes are abstract

• Character streams
o For Unicode characters
o Root classes for character streams:
• The Reader class
• The Writer class
• Both classes are abstract

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Input and Output Streams

• Input or source streams

o Can read from these streams
o Root classes of all input streams:
• The InputStream Class
• The Reader Class

• Output or sink (destination) streams

o Can write to these streams
o Root classes of all output streams:
• The OutputStream Class
• The Writer Class

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Node and Filter Streams

• Node streams (Data sink stream)

o Contain the basic functionality of reading or writing from a
specific location
o Types of node streams include files, memory and pipes

• Filter streams (Processing stream)

o Layered onto node streams between threads or processes
o For additional functionality- altering or managing data in the
stream

• Adding layers to a node stream is called stream

chaining 10
Java IO Stream hierarchy

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Control Flow of an I/O operation

1. Create a stream object and associate it with a data-

source (data-destination)

2. Give the stream object the desired functionality

through stream chaining

3. while (there is more information)

4. read(write) next data from(to) the stream

5. close the stream

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Byte Stream

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Byte Stream

• Programs use byte streams to perform input and output of 8-bit

bytes
• All byte stream classes are descended from InputStream and
OutputStream
• There are many byte stream classes
o FileInputStream and FileOutputStream

• They are used in much the same way; they differ mainly in the
way they are constructed

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When Not to Use Byte Streams?

• Byte Stream represents a kind of low-level I/O that you should

avoid
o If the data contains character data, the best approach is to use
character streams
o There are also streams for more complicated data types

• Byte streams should only be used for the most primitive I/O
• All other streams are based on byte stream

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Byte Stream example

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Character Stream

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Character Stream

• The Java platform stores character values using Unicode

conventions
• Character stream I/O automatically translates this internal
format to and from the local character set.
o In Western locales, the local character set is usually an 8-bit
superset of ASCII.

• All character stream classes are descended from Reader and

Writer
• As with byte streams, there are character stream classes that
specialize in file I/O: FileReader and FileWriter.

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Character Stream

• For most applications, I/O with character streams is no more

complicated than I/O with byte streams.
o Input and output done with stream classes automatically translates to
and from the local character set.
o A program that uses character streams in place of byte streams
automatically adapts to the local character set and is ready for
internationalization — all without extra effort by the programmer.
o If internationalization isn't a priority, you can simply use the character
stream classes without paying much attention to character set issues.
o Later, if internationalization becomes a priority, your program can be
adapted without extensive recoding.

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Character Stream example

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Character Stream and Byte Stream

• Character streams are often "wrappers" for byte streams

• The character stream uses the byte stream to perform the
physical I/O, while the character stream handles translation
between characters and bytes.
o FileReader, for example, uses FileInputStream, while FileWriter uses
FileOutputStream

• There are two general-purpose byte-to-character "bridge"

streams: InputStreamReader and OutputStreamWriter. Use
them to create character streams when there are no
prepackaged character stream classes that meet your needs.

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Line-Oriented I/O

• Character I/O usually occurs in bigger units than single

characters.
o One common unit is the line: a string of characters with a line
terminator at the end.
o A line terminator can be a carriage-return/line-feed sequence ("\r\
n"), a single carriage-return ("\r"), or a single line-feed ("\n").

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Line-Oriented I/O example

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Buffered Stream

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The necessary of Buffered Streams

• An unbuffered I/O means each read or write request is handled

directly by the underlying OS
o This can make a program much less efficient, since each such request
often triggers disk access, network activity, or some other operation
that is relatively expensive.

• To reduce this kind of overhead, the Java platform implements

buffered I/O streams
o Buffered input streams read data from a memory area known as a
buffer; the native input API is called only when the buffer is empty
o Similarly, buffered output streams write data to a buffer, and the
native output API is called only when the buffer is full.
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Buffered Stream Classes

• There are four buffered stream classes used to wrap

unbuffered streams:

o BufferedInputStream and BufferedOutputStream create buffered

byte streams.

o BufferedReader and BufferedWriter create buffered character

streams.

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Buffered Stream Classes - Reading demo

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Buffered Stream Classes - Writing demo

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Flushing Buffered Streams

• It often makes sense to write out a buffer at critical points,

without waiting for it to fill. This is known as flushing the buffer.
• Some buffered output classes support autoflush, specified by an
optional constructor argument.
o When autoflush is enabled, certain key events cause the buffer to be
flushed
o For example, an autoflush PrintWriter object flushes the buffer on
every invocation of println or format.

• To flush a stream manually, invoke its flush method

o The flush method is valid on any output stream, but has no effect unless
the stream is buffered.
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Standard Streams

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Standard Streams on Java Platform

• Three standard streams

o Standard Input, accessed through System.in
o Standard Output, accessed through System.out
o Standard Error, accessed through System.err

• These objects are defined automatically and do not

need to be opened
• System.out and System.err are defined as
PrintStream objects

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Data Streams

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Data Streams

• Data streams support binary I/O of primitive data type values

(boolean, char, byte, short, int, long, float, and double) as well as
String values
• All data streams implement either the DataInput interface or
the DataOutput interface
• DataInputStream and DataOutputStream are most widely-used
implementations of these interfaces

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The DataOutputStream class

• A data output stream lets an application write primitive Java

data types to an output stream in a portable way. An application
can then use a data input stream to read the data back in.
• Constructor:
DataOutputStream(OutputStream out)
Creates a new data output stream to write data to the
specified underlying output stream.

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DataOutputStream demo

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The DataInputStream class

• A data input stream lets an application read primitive Java data

types from an underlying input stream in a machine-independent
way. An application uses a data output stream to write data that
can later be read by a data input stream.
• Constructor :
DataInputStream(InputStream in)
Creates a DataInputStream that uses the specified underlying
InputStream.

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The DataInputStream exemple

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Object Streams

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Object Serialization

• Persistence is the concept that an object can exist separate

from the executing program that creates it
• Java contains a mechanism called object serialization for
creating persistent objects executing program that creates it.
• When an object is serialized, it is transformed into a sequence
of bytes; this sequence is raw binary representation of the
object. Later, this representation can be restored to the
original object. Once serialized, the object can be stored in a
file for later use.

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Object Streams

• Object streams support I/O of objects

o Like Data streams support I/O of primitive data types
o The object has to be Serializable type

• The object stream classes are ObjectInputStream

and ObjectOutputStream
o These classes implement ObjectInput and ObjectOutput,
which are subinterfaces of DataInput and DataOutput
o An object stream can contain a mixture of primitive and
object values

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Object Serialization

• Any object we want to serialize must implement the Serializable

interface.
• To serialize an object, we invoke the writeObject method of
an ObjectOutputStream.
• To deserialize the object, we invoke the readObject method of
an ObjectInputStream.
• The actual data streams to which the serialized object is
written can represent a file, network communication, or some
other type of stream.

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Object serialization demo

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Output and Input of Complex Objects

• The writeObject and readObject methods are simple to use, but

they contain some very sophisticated object management logic
o This isn't important for a class like Calendar, which just encapsulates
primitive values. But many objects contain references to other
objects.

• If readObject is to reconstitute an object from a stream, it has

to be able to reconstitute all of the objects the original object
referred to.
o These additional objects might have their own references, and so on.

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I/O of multiple referred-to objects

• Object a contains references to objects b and c, while b contains

references to d and e
• Invoking writeObject(a) writes not just a, but all the objects necessary
to reconstitute a, so the other four objects in this web are written also
• When a is read back by readObject, the other four objects are read
back as well, and all the original object references are preserved.

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NIO - New I/O

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NIO.2 - New I/O version 2

• Is aimed at simplifying I/O in Java

• A new file system and path abstraction
o Based on java.nio.file.Path
o Bulk access to file attributes
o File system specific support (e.g. Symbolic links)
o Extra providers (e.g. zip files treated as normal files)

• Asynchronous (non-blocking) I/O

o For sockets and files
o Mainly utilises java.util.concurrent.Future

• Socket/Channel construct
o Binding, options and multicast
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NIO.2 - Path

• java.nio2.file.Path interface
o Typically represents a file on a file system
o normalize() method removes constructs such as . and .. in a Path
o relativize(Path) constructs relative Path between this path and the
one given
o Lots of other expected methods defined in the interface
o Dealing with real path, absolute path etc
o Can convert java.io.File objects via the toFile() method

• java.nio2.file.Paths
o Helper class, provides get(URI) method to return you a Path
o Uses FileSystems helper class under the hood
o Uses the default file system unless you specify otherwise
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NIO.2 - Files

• java.nio2.file.Files helper class

o Day to day class for performing simple file I/O

• Many common methods

o copy
o delete
o move
o createDirectory/File/Link
o write
o readAllLines
o walkFileTree (recurse over a directory)
o newInputStream/OutputStream

• Combined with try-with-resources makes code concise

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URLStream to file - Java 6 vs. Java 7

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NIO.2 - Asynchronous I/O

• The ability to perform read/write operations in the background

o Without having to write your own java.util.concurrent code

• Is available for:
o file I/O (AsynchronousFileChannel)
o networking I/O (AsynchronousSocketChannel)
• And AsynchronousServerSocketChannel
• Can work in two styles
o Future based (order coffee, do something else, collect coffee)
o Callbacks (order coffee, do something else, have coffee thrown at
you)

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NIO.2 - Future based file I/O example

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NIO.2 - Callback based file I/O example

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Summary

 What is an I/O stream?

 Types of Streams
 Stream class hierarchy
 Control flow of an I/O operation using Streams
 Byte streams
 Character streams
 Buffered streams
 Standard I/O streams
 Data streams
 Object streams
 File class

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