writing to a file

[xyknight]

I need to use an interface to write to a file 5 times. My interface includes a book title, author ,and availability. I am to save all of this to a file 5 times where I will then create another program to read this file and perform a search.

My question is: when I write to the file, it keeps replacing what I wrote before.

For example:

In my first pass: the file has title, author, availability
In my second pass: it replaces the data from the first pass with this pass.

How do I tell it to keep writing to a file as many times as I enter data, which then can be read later using an array?

[lovelesh]

I am very sure, something is wrong in your logic.

Anyways, here's the workaround:

declare a StringBuilder and append all the contents to this stringbuilder object.

Once you are done with contents, write the stringbuilder to the file. This is like you are writing to file only once, no matter what.

If still you feel stuck, then paste your code here, we will have a look

[xyknight]

import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.ObjectOutputStream;

public class TryThis extends JFrame {

	private JPanel panel;
	private JButton button;
	private JCheckBox check;
	private JTextField bookTitle;
	private JTextField authorField;
	private JLabel bookLabel;
	private JLabel authorLabel;
	String title;
	String author;
	String available;
	
	
	public TryThis(String str) {
		super(str);

	}

	public static void main(String[] args) {

		TryThis myGUI = new TryThis("Save book records");
		myGUI.createAndShowGUI();
		myGUI.writeTofile();
	}

	private void createAndShowGUI() {

		setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
		Container contentPane = getContentPane();
		contentPane.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
		contentPane.setLayout(null);

		JButton button = new JButton("Save");
		button.setBounds(230, 125, 75, 20);
		this.add(button);
		button.addActionListener(new BookEntry());

		check = new JCheckBox("Available", false);
		check.setBounds(230, 100, 100, 20);
		this.add(check);

		bookLabel = new JLabel("Book title:");
		bookLabel.setBounds(10, 10, 100, 20);
		this.add(bookLabel);
		bookTitle = new JTextField();
		bookTitle.setBounds(120, 10, 350, 20);
		this.add(bookTitle);

		authorLabel = new JLabel("Author:");
		authorLabel.setBounds(10, 50, 100, 20);
		this.add(authorLabel);
		authorField = new JTextField();
		authorField.setBounds(120, 50, 350, 20);
		this.add(authorField);

		setSize(500, 200);

		setVisible(true);

	}

	public class BookEntry implements ActionListener {
		public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ev) {
			title = bookTitle.getText();
			author = authorField.getText();
			System.out.println(title);
			System.out.println(author);
			if (check.isSelected()) {
				available="available";
				
			} else {
				available="not available";
				
				}
			System.out.println(available);
			}

		}
	 
	public void writeTofile() {
		
		
			   StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();        
			   result.append(title);
			   result.append(author);
			   result.append(available);
		
		FileReader input = null; // output connection stream
		FileWriter output = null;  // output chain stream
		
		try { // all the I/O stuff must be a in try/catch
		File file = new File("book.txt");
		if(!file.exists()){
			file.createNewFile();
			System.out.println("new file:" + file);
		}
		    
		    output = new FileWriter("book.txt");
		    
		    output.write(result.toString());
		       
		
	}
		catch(Exception ex)
		{
			ex.printStackTrace();
		}
	}
		}

we never covered StringBuilder in the seminar but it makes sense when I tried Googling it. However, it doesn't want to write anything to the file anymore.

[Fubarable]

You're writing to the file at program start up before any data has been entered. Remember that Swing GUI's are event-driven and for the data to have any meaning, it has to be entered first. Perhaps you should append to the file when the user presses the button.

[xyknight]

That makes sense and I moved everything to the ActionListener but it still replaces the text in the file with new text instead of appending it.

public class BookEntry implements ActionListener {
		public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ev) {
			title = bookTitle.getText();
			author = authorField.getText();
			System.out.println(title);
			System.out.println(author);
			if (check.isSelected()) {
				available="available";
				
			} else {
				available="not available";
				
				}
			System.out.println(available);
			
		
			   StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();        
			   result.append(title);
			   result.append(author);
			   result.append(available);
		
			try { // all the I/O stuff must be a in try/catch
		File file = new File("book.txt");
		if(!file.exists()){
			file.createNewFile();
			System.out.println("new file:" + file);
		}
		    
		    BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(file));
		    writer.write(result.toString());
		    writer.close();
		    
		       
		
	}
		catch(Exception ex)
		{
			ex.printStackTrace();
		}
	}

[ra4king]

Whenever you create a new object of FileWriter, it doesn't append to what's already written, it destroys all previous data and starts fresh.
Use PrintWriter instead of BufferedWriter and create a new instance of FileOutputStream and specify "true" in the constructor to tell it to append to the file.

http://ra4king.is-a-geek.net/javadoc...putStream.html

String fileName = "fileName.txt";
FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(fileName,true);
PrintWriter writer = new PrintWriter(fos);
writer.println(data);
//etc....

[xyknight]

I was advised to use the following code:

public class BookEntry implements ActionListener {
		public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ev) {
			title = bookTitle.getText();
			author = authorField.getText();
			System.out.println(title);
			System.out.println(author);
			if (check.isSelected()) {
				available = "available";

			} else {
				available = "not available";

			}
			System.out.println(available);

						
			try { // all the I/O stuff must be a in try/catch
				File file = new File("book.txt");
				if (!file.exists()) {
					file.createNewFile();
					System.out.println("new file:" + file);
				}
				String bookRecord = title + ";" + author +";" + available + ";" + "/n";
				
				System.out.println(bookRecord);
				
				FileWriter writer = new FileWriter(file,true);

				BufferedWriter buwriter = new BufferedWriter(writer);
				buwriter.append(bookRecord);
				writer.close();

			} catch (IOException ex) {
				ex.printStackTrace();
			}
		}
	}

However, it now does not want to write anything to the text file

[ra4king]

Yes, that works too because you have supplied "true" as the second parameter to FileWriter, which specifies to append to the file.

[xyknight]

But for some reason it is not writing to the file

[ra4king]

Ah that's because you forgot to call buwriter.flush() ;)

[Fubarable]

Ah that's because you forgot to call buwriter.flush() ;)

And in fact you should call close on the BufferedWriter, not the FileWriter object. This will flush the BufferedWriter at the same time. It should be done in a finally block after first checking that the BufferedWriter isn't null.

[xyknight]

that fixed it..thank you everyone :-)