How do I create a file and write to it in Java?

Question

What's the simplest way to create and write to a (text) file in Java?

Answer 1

Here's a little example program to create or overwrite a file. It's the long version so it can be understood more easily.

import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
import java.io.Writer;

public class writer {
    public void writing() {
        try {
            //Whatever the file path is.
            File statText = new File("E:/Java/Reference/bin/images/statsTest.txt");
            FileOutputStream is = new FileOutputStream(statText);
            OutputStreamWriter osw = new OutputStreamWriter(is);    
            Writer w = new BufferedWriter(osw);
            w.write("POTATO!!!");
            w.close();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            System.err.println("Problem writing to the file statsTest.txt");
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[]args) {
        writer write = new writer();
        write.writing();
    }
}

Answer 2

Here are some of the possible ways to create and write a file in Java :

Using FileOutputStream

try {
  File fout = new File("myOutFile.txt");
  FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(fout);
  BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(fos));
  bw.write("Write somthing to the file ...");
  bw.newLine();
  bw.close();
} catch (FileNotFoundException e){
  // File was not found
  e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
  // Problem when writing to the file
  e.printStackTrace();
}

Using FileWriter

try {
  FileWriter fw = new FileWriter("myOutFile.txt");
  fw.write("Example of content");
  fw.close();
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
  // File not found
  e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
  // Error when writing to the file
  e.printStackTrace();
}

Using PrintWriter

try {
  PrintWriter pw = new PrintWriter("myOutFile.txt");
  pw.write("Example of content");
  pw.close();
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
  // File not found
  e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
  // Error when writing to the file
  e.printStackTrace();
}

Using OutputStreamWriter

try {
  File fout = new File("myOutFile.txt");
  FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(fout);
  OutputStreamWriter osw = new OutputStreamWriter(fos);
  osw.write("Soe content ...");
  osw.close();
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
  // File not found
  e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
  // Error when writing to the file
  e.printStackTrace();
}

For further check this tutorial about How to read and write files in Java .

Answer 3

If we are using Java 7 and above and also know the content to be added (appended) to the file we can make use of newBufferedWriter method in NIO package.

public static void main(String[] args) {
    Path FILE_PATH = Paths.get("C:/temp", "temp.txt");
    String text = "\n Welcome to Java 8";

    //Writing to the file temp.txt
    try (BufferedWriter writer = Files.newBufferedWriter(FILE_PATH, StandardCharsets.UTF_8, StandardOpenOption.APPEND)) {
        writer.write(text);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

There are few points to note:

1. It is always a good habit to specify charset encoding and for that we have constant in class StandardCharsets.
2. The code uses try-with-resource statement in which resources are automatically closed after the try.

Though OP has not asked but just in case we want to search for lines having some specific keyword e.g. confidential we can make use of stream APIs in Java:

//Reading from the file the first line which contains word "confidential"
try {
    Stream<String> lines = Files.lines(FILE_PATH);
    Optional<String> containsJava = lines.filter(l->l.contains("confidential")).findFirst();
    if(containsJava.isPresent()){
        System.out.println(containsJava.get());
    }
} catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

Answer 4

Use:

JFileChooser c = new JFileChooser();
c.showOpenDialog(c);
File writeFile = c.getSelectedFile();
String content = "Input the data here to be written to your file";

try {
    FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(writeFile);
    BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(fw);
    bw.append(content);
    bw.append("hiiiii");
    bw.close();
    fw.close();
}
catch (Exception exc) {
   System.out.println(exc);
}

Answer 5

Creating a sample file:

try {
    File file = new File ("c:/new-file.txt");
    if(file.createNewFile()) {
        System.out.println("Successful created!");
    }
    else {
        System.out.println("Failed to create!");
    }
}
catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

Answer 6

A very simple way to create and write to a file in Java:

import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileWriter;

public class CreateFiles {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try{
            // Create new file
            String content = "This is the content to write into create file";
            String path="D:\\a\\hi.txt";
            File file = new File(path);

            // If file doesn't exists, then create it
            if (!file.exists()) {
                file.createNewFile();
            }

            FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(file.getAbsoluteFile());
            BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(fw);

            // Write in file
            bw.write(content);

            // Close connection
            bw.close();
        }
        catch(Exception e){
            System.out.println(e);
        }
    }
}

Reference: File create Example in java