How do I use a FileChannel to read data into a Buffer?

The example below show how to use a FileChannel to read some data into a Buffer. We create a FileChannel from a FileInputStream instance. Because a channel reads data into buffer we need to create a ByteBuffer and set its capacity. Read data from a channel into buffer using the FileChannel.read() method.

To read out the data from the buffer we need to flip the buffer first using the Buffer.flip() method. The method will change the buffer from writing-mode into reading-mode. After the entire buffer is read clear the buffer using the clear() method call.

package org.kodejava.io;

import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
import java.nio.channels.FileChannel;

public class FileRead {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String path = "D:/Temp/source.txt";
        try (FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(path);
             FileChannel fileChannel = fis.getChannel()) {

            ByteBuffer buffer = ByteBuffer.allocate(64);

            int bytesRead = fileChannel.read(buffer);
            while (bytesRead != -1) {
                buffer.flip();

                while (buffer.hasRemaining()) {
                    System.out.print((char) buffer.get());
                }

                buffer.clear();
                bytesRead = fileChannel.read(buffer);
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

How do I create a NIO Buffer?

This post show you how to use the java.nio buffer such as ByteBuffer, CharBuffer, DoubleBuffer, etc. To create a buffer you can use the allocate(int capacity) method. Each buffer object has the allocate(int capacity) method. You need to pass the value of the capacity of the buffer to be created when calling this method.

package org.kodejava.io;

import java.nio.*;

public class BufferAllocate {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        ByteBuffer byteBuffer = ByteBuffer.allocate(64);
        CharBuffer charBuffer = CharBuffer.allocate(64);
        ShortBuffer shortBuffer = ShortBuffer.allocate(64);
        IntBuffer intBuffer = IntBuffer.allocate(64);
        LongBuffer longBuffer = LongBuffer.allocate(64);
        FloatBuffer floatBuffer = FloatBuffer.allocate(64);
        DoubleBuffer doubleBuffer = DoubleBuffer.allocate(64);
    }
}

How do I copy file using FileChannel class?

The example below show you how to copy a file using the java.nio.channels.FileChannel class.

package org.kodejava.io;

import java.io.*;
import java.nio.channels.FileChannel;

public class FileCopy {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        //// Define the source and target file
        File source = new File("D:/Temp/source.txt");
        File target = new File("D:/Temp/target.txt");

        // Create the source and target channel
        try (FileChannel sourceChannel = new FileInputStream(source).getChannel();
             FileChannel targetChannel = new FileOutputStream(target).getChannel()) {

            // Copy data from the source channel into the target channel
            targetChannel.transferFrom(sourceChannel, 0, sourceChannel.size());
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

How do I read a file into byte array?

package org.kodejava.io;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;

public class ReadFileIntoByteArray {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        File file = new File("README.md");
        try (InputStream is = new FileInputStream(file)) {
            if (file.length() > Integer.MAX_VALUE) {
                throw new IOException("File is too large.");
            }

            int offset = 0;
            int bytesRead;
            byte[] bytes = new byte[(int) file.length()];
            while (offset < bytes.length
                    && (bytesRead = is.read(bytes, offset, bytes.length - offset)) >= 0) {
                offset += bytesRead;
            }
        }
    }
}

How do I detect non-ASCII characters in string?

The code below detect if a given string has a non ASCII characters in it. We use the CharsetDecoder class from the java.nio package to decode string to be a valid US-ASCII charset.

package org.kodejava.io;

import java.nio.charset.CharsetDecoder;
import java.nio.charset.CharacterCodingException;
import java.nio.CharBuffer;
import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
import java.util.Arrays;

public class NonAsciiValidation {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // This string contains a non ASCII character which will produce exception
        // in this program. While the second string has a valid ASCII only characters.
        byte[] invalidBytes = "Copyright © 2021 Kode Java Org".getBytes();
        byte[] validBytes = "Copyright (c) 2021 Kode Java Org".getBytes();

        // Returns a charset object for the named charset.
        CharsetDecoder decoder = StandardCharsets.US_ASCII.newDecoder();
        try {
            CharBuffer buffer = decoder.decode(ByteBuffer.wrap(validBytes));
            System.out.println(Arrays.toString(buffer.array()));

            buffer = decoder.decode(ByteBuffer.wrap(invalidBytes));
            System.out.println(Arrays.toString(buffer.array()));
        } catch (CharacterCodingException e) {
            System.err.println("The information contains a non ASCII character(s).");
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Below is the result of the program:

[C, o, p, y, r, i, g, h, t,  , (, c, ),  , 2, 0, 2, 1,  , K, o, d, e,  , J, a, v, a,  , O, r, g]
The information contains a non ASCII character(s).
java.nio.charset.MalformedInputException: Input length = 1
    at java.base/java.nio.charset.CoderResult.throwException(CoderResult.java:274)
    at java.base/java.nio.charset.CharsetDecoder.decode(CharsetDecoder.java:820)
    at org.kodejava.io.NonAsciiValidation.main(NonAsciiValidation.java:23)

How do I create temporary file?

A temporary file can be created by using java.io.File.createTempFile() method. It accepts the prefix, suffix and the path where the file will be stored. When no path is specified it will use the platform default temporary folder.

The name of the temporary file will be in the form of prefix plus five or more random characters plus the suffix. When the suffix is null a default .tmp will be used for suffix.

package org.kodejava.io;

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

public class TemporaryFileDemo {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        // Create a temporary file userlist.txt in the default platform
        // temporary folder / directory. We can get the platform temporary
        // folder using System.getProperty("java.io.tmpdir")
        File user = File.createTempFile("userlist", ".txt");

        // Delete the file when the virtual machine is terminated.
        user.deleteOnExit();

        // Create a temporary file data.txt in the user specified folder.
        File data = File.createTempFile("data", ".txt", new File("F:/Temp/Data"));
        data.deleteOnExit();

        // Write data into temporary file
        try (BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(data))) {
            writer.write("750101,2008-01-01,BLUE,CAR");
            writer.write("750102,2008-09-06,RED,CAR");
            writer.write("750103,2008-05-01,GREEN,CAR");
            writer.write("750104,2008-06-08,YELLOW,CAR");
        }
    }
}

How do I display file contents in hexadecimal?

In this program we read the file contents byte by byte and then print the value in hexadecimal format. As an alternative to read a single byte we can read the file contents into array of bytes at once to process the file faster.

package org.kodejava.io;

import java.io.FileInputStream;

public class HexDumpDemo {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        // Open the file using FileInputStream
        String fileName = "F:/Wayan/Kodejava/kodejava-example/data.txt";
        try (FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(fileName)) {
            // A variable to hold a single byte of the file data
            int i = 0;

            // A counter to print a new line every 16 bytes read.
            int count = 0;

            // Read till the end of the file and print the byte in hexadecimal
            // valueS.
            while ((i = fis.read()) != -1) {
                System.out.printf("%02X ", i);
                count++;

                if (count == 16) {
                    System.out.println();
                    count = 0;
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

And here are some result from the file read by the above program.

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 
37 38 39 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 30 31 32 
33 34 35 36 37 38 39 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 
39 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 30 31 32 33 34 
35 36 37 38 39 30 0A 

How do I get the list of file system root?

The code below demonstrates how to obtain file system root available on your system. In Linux, you will have a single root (/) while on Windows you could get C:\ or D:\ that represent the root drives.

package org.kodejava.io;

import java.io.File;

public class FileSystemRoot {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // List the available filesystem roots.
        File[] root = File.listRoots();

        // Iterate the entire filesystem roots.
        for (File file : root) {
            System.out.println("Root: " + file.getAbsolutePath());
        }
    }
}

The result of the code snippet:

Root: C:\
Root: D:\
Root: F:\

How do I check if a directory is not empty?

package org.kodejava.io;

import java.io.File;

public class EmptyDirCheck {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        File file = new File("D:/Downloads");

        // Check to see if the object represent a directory.
        if (file.isDirectory()) {
            // Get list of file in the directory. When its length is not zero
            // the folder is not empty.
            String[] files = file.list();

            if (files != null && files.length > 0) {
                System.out.println(file.getPath() + " is not empty!");
            }
        }
    }
}

How do I copy file?

This example demonstrates how to copy file using the Java IO library. Here we will use the java.io.FileInputStream and it’s tandem the java.io.FileOutputStream class.

package org.kodejava.io;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;

public class FileCopyDemo {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Create an instance of source and destination files
        File source = new File("source.pdf");
        File destination = new File("target.pdf");

        try (FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(source);
             FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(destination)) {
            // Define the size of our buffer for buffering file data
            byte[] buffer = new byte[4096];
            int read;
            while ((read = fis.read(buffer)) != -1) {
                fos.write(buffer, 0, read);
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}