FileWriter in Java with Example

FileWriter in Java is an output stream that writes data in the form of characters into the text file.

In other words, FileWriter is a character-based output stream that writes characters into a text file using the platform’s default character encoding and buffer size.

FileWriter is useful when we want:

to write text into a specific file.
to append text in a file.
to copy text from one file to another file.

For writing characters in files, Java provides FileWriter class.

Java FileWriter Class Declaration

FileWriter class is a subclass of OutputStreamWriter class that extends Writer class. It implements Closeable, Flushable, Appendable, and AutoCloseable interfaces.

The general syntax to declare FileWriter class in Java is given below:

public class FileWriter
    extends OutputStreamWriter
        implements Closeable, Flushable, Appendable, AutoCloseable

Appendable is present in java.lang package. It defines an object to which characters can be added by using the append( ) method.

The inheritance hierarchy for this class is as follows:

java.lang.Object
    java.io.Writer
        java.io.OutputStreamWriter
            java.io.FileWriter

Constructors of FileWriter Class

FileWriter class defines several constructors in Java that are as follows:

1. FileWriter(File file): This constructor creates a FileWriter object with the specified File to write, using the platform’s default charset. Here, file specifies the File object that describes the file.

The syntax to create a FileWriter object with the specified File object is as follows:

File file = new File("myfile.txt");
FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(file);

2. FileWriter(FileDescriptor fd): This constructor creates a FileWriter object with a specified file descriptor, using the platform’s default charset.

3. FileWriter(File file, boolean append): This constructor creates a FileWriter object with the specified File to write and a boolean indicating whether to append the data written, using the platform’s default charset.

If append is true, then the contents of a preexisting file will be preserved and the output is appended to the end of the file. This is useful when we want to add to an existing file. Otherwise, when the append is false, the contents of any preexisting file with the same name will be destroyed.

The syntax to create a FileWriter object with a specified file object is as:

File file = new File("myfile.txt");
FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(file, true);

4. FileWriter(File file, Charset charset): This constructor creates a FileWriter object with the specified File to write and charset.

5. FileWriter(File file, Charset charset, boolean append): This form of constructor creates a FileWriter object with given the File to write, charset, and a boolean indicating whether to append the data written.

6. FileWriter(String fileName): This constructor creates a FileWriter object with the specified file name, using the platform’s default charset. Any text written in the file is overwritten.

The general syntax to create a FileWriter with a specified file name is as follows:

FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(String fileName);

For example:
   FileWriter fw = new FileWriter("myfile.txt");

7. FileWriter(String fileName, boolean append): This constructor creates a FileWriter object with a file name and a boolean indicating whether to append the data written, using the platform’s default charset.

If the append is true, the new text is appended to the existing content of the file rather than overwriting them by setting the second argument true.

The general syntax to create FileWriter object is as follows:

FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(String fileName, boolean append);

For example:
   FileWriter fw = new FileWriter("myfile.txt", true);

8. FileWriter(String fileName, Charset charset): This constructor creates a FileWriter object with given a file name and charset.

9. FileWriter(String fileName, Charset charset, boolean append): This overloaded form of constructor creates a FileWriter object with given a file name, charset, and a boolean indicating whether to append the data written.

If the named file does not exist, this form of constructor throws an exception named IOException.

Note:

The FileWriter class constructor internally creates a FileOutputStream to write bytes to the specified file. With the help of its superclass OutputStreamWriter, it converts Unicode characters written to the stream into bytes using the default encoding of default locale.

Methods of FileWriter Class in Java

FileWriter class does define any methods of its own. It simply inherits them from its superclass.

1. Methods inherited from class java.io.OutputStreamWriter: flush, getEncoding, write, write, write

2. Methods inherited from class java.io.Writer: append, append, append, close, nullWriter, write, write

Example Program based on FileWriter class

Let’s take a simple example program where we will write a text into a file. We will use write() method to write into a file inherited from Writer class.

Example 1:

package javaPackage;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;

public class FileWriterEx {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException 
{
// Create a FileWriter object to open the file.
   FileWriter fw = new FileWriter("D:\\myfile.txt");

// To write text to the file, call write() method inherited from Writer class.
   fw.write("Welcome to Scientech Easy \n"); // Writing text to the file.
   fw.write("I love Java Programming");
   
   fw.close(); // Closing the file.
   System.out.println("Successfully written...");
 }
}

Output:
       Successfully written...

Data written in the file:

 Welcome to Scientech Easy
 I love Java Programming

In this program, we have created a FileWriter object, specifying the name of file in the form of either String or File reference. The write() method inherited from Writer class has been used to write lines of text.

If you are writing multiple lines of text, must use newline. Without the newline, the next string would start on the same line, immediately after the previous one.

Let’s take another example program in which we will write an array of strings to a file. Look at the program source code to understand better.

Example 2:

package javaPackage;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;

public class FileWriterEx {
public static void main(String[ ] args) throws IOException 
{
  String strs[ ] = { "This is a dog", 
		     "This is a cat", 
		     "This is an elephant", 
		     "This is a lion"
  };
	
// Create a FileWriter object to open file.
   FileWriter fw = new FileWriter("D:\\myfile.txt");

// To write an array of Strings to the file, call write() method inherited from Writer class.
   for(int i = 0; i < strs.length; i++) 
   {
       fw.write(strs[i]); // write line to file
       fw.write("\n"); // output a newline
   }
   fw.close(); // Closing the file.
   System.out.println("Successfully written...");
 }
}

Output:
      Successfully written...

Contents written to file:

This is a dog
This is a cat
This is an elephant
This is a lion

Let’s create a program where we will copy lines of text from one file to another file in a very simple process. The contents written in the input.txt file are as follows:

This is an apple.
This is an orange.
This is papaya.
This is a mango.

Example 3:

package javaPackage;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;

public class CopyText {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException 
{
   File inFile = new File("D:\\input.txt");
   File outFile = new File("D:\\output.txt");
	
   FileReader fr = new FileReader(inFile);
   FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(outFile);

// Read and write till the end.
   int ch;
   while((ch = fr.read()) != -1) {
	fw.write(ch);  
   }
   fr.close();
   fw.close();
 }
}

Contents to output.txt file:

This is an apple.
This is an orange.
This is papaya.
This is a mango.

In this simple program, we have created two file objects inFile and outFile and initializes them with “input.txt” and “output.txt” respectively using the following code:

File inFile = new File("D:\\input.txt");
File outFile = new File("D:\\output.txt");

Then, we have created two file stream objects fr and fw, and connected them to the named files using the following code:

FileReader fr = new FileReader(inFile); // Connecting inFile to FileReader.
FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(outFile); // Connecting outFile to FileWriter.

Connecting of inFile with FileReader and outFile with FileWriter means files “input.txt” and “output.txt” are opened.

The statement ch = fr.read(); reads a character from the inFile through input stream fr and assigns it to the variable ch.

Similarly, the statement fw.write(ch); writes the character stored in the variable ch to the outFile through the output stream fw.

The character -1 indicates the end of file. When the end of file is reached, the statements fr.close() and fw.close() close the input and output streams.

Thus, we have performed reading and writing characters using file streams and file objects in this program. Look at the below figure to understand better.

In this tutorial, we have covered almost all the important topics related to FileWriter class in Java with the help of some example programs. Hope that you will have understood how to write text to a file using FileWriter class. In the next, we will discuss BufferedWriter in Java that buffers the stream of characters before writing them to an underlying output stream.
Thanks for reading!!!

Java FileWriter Class Declaration

Constructors of FileWriter Class

Methods of FileWriter Class in Java

Example Program based on FileWriter class

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