I have the following code:
File file=new File("src/com/yoznacks/main/stuff.txt");
FileInputStream foo=new FileInputStream(file);
int a;
while((a=foo.read())!=-1){
System.out.print((char)a);
}
My file is as follows:
aaaaa
But the output is
a a a a a
Why is that?
You are reading bytes. If the file's text were encoded in UTF-16LE then the bytes would be 0x61 0x00 0x61 0x00 0x61 0x00 0x61 0x00 0x61 0x00, where 0x61 as char is 'a'.
For reading text instead of bytes java uses *Reader instead of *InputStream, together with specifying the encoding (Charset) of the bytes.
try (InputStream in = getClass().getResourceAsStream("/com/yoznacks/main/stuff.txt");
InputStreamReader foo = new InputStreamReader(in, StandardCharsets.UTF_16LE)) {
int a;
while ((a = foo.read()) !=-1 ) {
System.out.print((char)a);
}
System.out.println(); // Output, flush all.
} // foo and in are closed.
InputStreamReader takes a binary InputStream and given a Charset of the bytes produces Unicode text, char.
If the file is part of the application (like zipped in the application jar), then it is a resource, and can be read with getResource(AsStream).
