Streams - Java Network Programming - page 46

public void write ( char [] text ) throws IOException
public void write ( String s ) throws IOException
public void write ( String s , int offset , int length ) throws IOException
public abstract void flush () throws IOException
public abstract void close () throws IOException
The write(char[] text, int offset, int length) method is the base method in
terms of which the other four write() methods are implemented. A subclass must
override at least this method as well as flush() and close() , although most override
some of the other write() methods as well in order to provide more efficient imple‐
mentations. For example, given a Writer object w , you can write the string “Network”
like this:
char [] network = { 'N' , 'e' , 't' , 'w' , 'o' , 'r' , 'k' };
w . write ( network , 0 , network . length );
The same task can be accomplished with these other methods, as well:
w . write ( network );
for ( int i = 0 ; i < network . length ; i ++) w . write ( network [ i ]);
w . write ( "Network" );
w . write ( "Network" , 0 , 7 );
All of these examples are different ways of expressing the same thing. The one you
choose to use in any given situation is mostly a matter of convenience and taste. How‐
ever, how many and which bytes are written by these lines depends on the encoding w
uses. If it's using big-endian UTF-16, it will write these 14 bytes (shown here in hexa‐
decimal) in this order:
00 4E 00 65 00 74 00 77 00 6F 00 72 00 6B
On the other hand, if w uses little-endian UTF-16, this sequence of 14 bytes is written:
4E 00 65 00 74 00 77 00 6F 00 72 00 6B 00
If w uses Latin-1, UTF-8, or MacRoman, this sequence of seven bytes is written:
4E 65 74 77 6F 72 6B
Other encodings may write still different sequences of bytes. The exact output depends
on the encoding.
Writers may be buffered, either directly by being chained to a BufferedWriter or in‐
directly because their underlying output stream is buffered. To force a write to be com‐
mitted to the output medium, invoke the flush() method:
w . flush ();
The close() method behaves similarly to the close() method of OutputStream .
close() flushes the writer, then closes the underlying output stream and releases any
resources associated with it:
public abstract void close () throws IOException