What I want to achieve is to create a file regardless of whether the file exists or not.
I tried using File.createNewFile() but that will only create the file if it does not already exists. Should I use File.delete() and then File.createNewFile()?
Or is there a clearer way of doing it?
FileWriter has a constructor that takes 2 parameters too: The file name and a boolean. The boolean indicates whether to append or overwrite an existing file. Here are two Java FileWriter examples showing that:
Writer fileWriter = new FileWriter("c:\\data\\output.txt", true); //appends to file
Writer fileWriter = new FileWriter("c:\\data\\output.txt", false); //overwrites file
You can use a suitable Writer:
BufferedWriter br = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(new File("abc.txt")));
br.write("some text");
It will create a file abc.txt if it doesn't exist. If it does, it will overwrite the file.
You can also open the file in append mode by using another constructor of FileWriter:
BufferedWriter br = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(new File("abc.txt"), true));
br.write("some text");
The documentation for above constructor says:
Constructs a FileWriter object given a File object. If the second
argument is true, then bytes will be written to the end of the file
rather than the beginning.
Calling File#createNewFile is safe, assuming the path is valid and you have write permissions on it. If a file already exists with that name, it will just return false:
File f = new File("myfile.txt");
if (f.createNewFile()) {
// If there wasn't a file there beforehand, there is one now.
} else {
// If there was, no harm, no foul
}
// And now you can use it.
Related
I created a text file with the content "Hello" and I was trying to read these characters from the file and write it back to the same file again.
Assumptions:
1. the file now has the content "Hello" (Overwritten)
2. the file now has the content "HelloHello" (Appended)
3. the file now has the content infinite "Hello" (or an exception gets thrown)
Actual result:
Original "Hello" characters gets deleted from the text file, and the file was left empty.
Actual test
#Test
public void testCopyStream() throws IOException {
File workingDir = new File(System.getProperty("user.dir"));
File testFile = new File(workingDir, "/test.txt");
FileReader fin = new FileReader(testFile);
FileWriter fos = new FileWriter(testFile);
copyStream(fin, fos);
fin.close();
fos.close();
}
I have created the following method for "copying" the data in the InputStream to the OutputStream:
private void copyStream(Reader in, Writer out) throws IOException {
int b;
while ((b = in.read()) != -1) {
out.write(b);
}
}
I tried using debugger to find out the problem, and the debugger shows b = in.read() was assigned -1 at the first iteration of the while loop. Then I executed the code step by step while inspecting the file's content and found that "Hello" keyword got deleted from the file right after statementfinal FileWriter fos = new FileWriter(testFile); gets executed.
I first thought this was due to the InputStream and OutputStream were pointed to the same file so the file gets sort of "locked" by JVM for execution safety?
So I tried swapping those two lines:
FileWriter fos = new FileWriter(testFile);
FileReader fin = new FileReader(testFile);
And the result turned out the same: the file content got eliminated right after the statement FileWriter fos = new FileWriter(testFile);
My questions is: why the content gets cleaned out by FileWriter?. Is this some behavior related to FileDescriptor? Is there a way to read and write to the same file?
Just FYI,
copyStream() method is working fine, I have tested it with other tests.
It's not about using append() method instead of write()
The statement FileWriter fos = new FileWriter(testFile); truncates the existing file.
It does not make sense for you to use streaming access to read and write the same file, as this won't give reliable results. Use RandomAccessFile if you want to read / write the same file: this has calls to seek current position and perform read or writes at different positions of a file.
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/io/RandomAccessFile.html
FileWriter actually deletes everything in a file before writing. To preserve the text, use
new FileWriter(file, true);
The true parameter is the append parameter of the filewriter. Otherwise it will just overwrite everything
i want to add data inside of an existing json file..
this is my code:
JsonWriterWithGui(){
if(ae.getSource() == btn_submit){
String lname = (String)lbl_name.getText().toString();
String ladd = (String)lbl_add.getText().toString();
String lcontact = (String)lbl_contact.getText().toString();
FileWriter jsonFileWriter = new FileWriter( "E:\\"+tsave+".json");
jsonFileWriter.write(jsonObject.toJSONString());
jsonFileWriter.flush();
jsonFileWriter.close();
this code is already working. but I am trying to update a json file that already exists.
This is a bit of a guess because the problem you're having isn't entirely clear from the question, but if you're finding that your writes are overwriting instead of appending then try changing this line:
FileWriter jsonFileWriter = new FileWriter( "E:\\"+tsave+".json");
...to this:
FileWriter jsonFileWriter = new FileWriter("E:\\"+tsave+".json", true);
You see, FileWriter is backed by FileOutputStream, which takes a boolean argument saying whether new content should be appended or not. This boolean is false by default so if you want to append then you need to explicitly say so.
I am writing String content to text file in Java code but after writing saving file onto disk, I am getting Incorrect encoding exception, Please suggest me correct Java Code?
String content =fileContent;//fileContent.toString();
System.out.println("File Contt===>"+content);
File fileWrite = new File("/homeDesktop/NormalFile/"+filename);
// if file doesnt exists, then create it
if (!fileWrite.exists()) {
fileWrite.createNewFile();
}
FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(fileWrite.getAbsoluteFile());
BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(fw);
bw.write(fileContent);
bw.close();
IOUtils.toString(String) Converts your coding.
String not encoded in UTF-8
NOTE:
You dont need this:
// if file doesnt exists, then create it
if (!fileWrite.exists()) {
fileWrite.createNewFile();
}
File create automatically a new file, if there isn't one.
Every day I update a csv file using a FileWriter. When we step into a new month I have to delete the data from the previous month. My below code only updates a data in a csv file so, please help in deleting the previous month's data.
At least I need to know how to delete the data in csv file using FileWriter, so that I can manage to code for deleting previous month data.
private static void eventsUpdate(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response) {
String date=request.getParameter("date"); //getting from jsp page
String event=request.getParameter("event"); //getting from jsp page
File file = new File( "D:///events/events.csv");
if ( !file.exists() )
file.createNewFile();
FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(file,true);
BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter( fw );
writer.write(date);
writer.write(",");
writer.write(event);
System.out.println("writing into excel");
writer.newLine();
writer.close();
fw.close();
}
Actually when you use the true argument in your FileWriter instantiation, you create a file writer object in append mode.
FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(file,false);
If you don't use the true option, the file will be overwritten by the new content. Therefore, I would suggest to follow this roadmap:
Read the file content as a whole, in a String
Remove the content you want to remove from the specific String
Overwrite the file
content using your new content in the specific String
Hope I helped!
I suggest you that you may create unique name file like march2014, january2013 instead of deleting it. Every month you need to read your target file which is named by your month strategy.
For ex:
When you reach april2014, create a new file april2014 etc. and read it for that month.
Is there anyway I can write to an already existing file using Filewriter
For example when the user clicks a submit button:
FileWriter writer = new FileWriter("myfile.csv");
writer.append("LastName");
writer.append(',');
writer.append("FirstName");
writer.append('/n');
writer.append(LastNameTextField.getText());
writer.append(',');
writer.append(FirstNameTextField.getText());
I want to be able to write new data into the already existing myfile.csv without having to recreate a brand new one every time
Yeah. Use the constructor like this:
FileWriter writer = new FileWriter("myfile.csv",true);
FileWriter
public FileWriter(File file,
boolean append)
throws IOException
Constructs a FileWriter object given a File object. If the second argument is true, then bytes will be written to the end of the file rather than the beginning.