10.1 An Overview of Streams and File I/O
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond,
But is there anything Beyond?
—RUPERT BROOKE, Heaven
In this section, we give you a general introduction to file I/O. In particular, we explain the difference between text files and binary files. The Java syntax for file I/O statements is given in subsequent sections of this chapter.
The Concept of a Stream
You are already using files to store your Java classes and programs, your music, your pictures, and your videos. You can also use files to store input for a program or to hold output from a program. In Java, file I/O, as well as simple keyboard and screen I/O, is handled by streams. A stream is a flow of data. The data might be characters, numbers, or bytes ...
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