Streams - Java Network Programming - page 49

For example, this method reads an input stream and converts it all to one Unicode string
using the MacCyrillic encoding:
public static String getMacCyrillicString ( InputStream in )
throws IOException {
InputStreamReader r = new InputStreamReader ( in , "MacCyrillic" );
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder ();
int c ;
while (( c = r . read ()) != - 1 ) sb . append (( char ) c );
return sb . toString ();
}
Filter Readers and Writers
The InputStreamReader and OutputStreamWriter classes act as decorators on top of
input and output streams that change the interface from a byte-oriented interface to a
character-oriented interface. Once this is done, additional character-oriented filters can
be layered on top of the reader or writer using the java.io.FilterReader and
java.io.FilterWriter classes. As with filter streams, there are a variety of subclasses
that perform specific filtering, including:
• BufferedReader
• BufferedWriter
• LineNumberReader
• PushbackReader
• PrintWriter
The BufferedReader and BufferedWriter classes are the character-based equivalents
of the byte-oriented BufferedInputStream and BufferedOutputStream classes. Where
BufferedInputStream and BufferedOutputStream use an internal array of bytes as a
buffer, BufferedReader and BufferedWriter use an internal array of chars.
When a program reads from a BufferedReader , text is taken from the buffer rather
than directly from the underlying input stream or other text source. When the buffer
empties, it is filled again with as much text as possible, even if not all of it is immediately
needed, making future reads much faster. When a program writes to a
BufferedWriter , the text is placed in the buffer. The text is moved to the underlying
output stream or other target only when the buffer fills up or when the writer is explicitly
flushed, which can make writes much faster than would otherwise be the case.
BufferedReader and BufferedWriter have the usual methods associated with readers
and writers, like read() , ready() , write() , and close() . They each have two con‐
structors that chain the BufferedReader or BufferedWriter to an underlying reader