IO and NIO.

Copyright © Seán Kennedy

 IO and NIO.2

Java 11 (1Z0-819)

Copyright © Seán Kennedy

 IO
• This first section relates to the java.io package and is called
“Java I/O Fundamentals”.

• The second section relates to the java.nio.* packages and is

called “NIO.2”. NIO.2 relates to the key features introduced
in Java 7 residing in two packages :
java.nio.file
java.nio.attribute

Copyright © Seán Kennedy

 Java IO Fundamentals
• Java reads/writes characters or bytes.

• Classes with “Stream” in their name read/writes binary:

 FileInputStream, FileOutputStream, ObjectInputStream and
ObjectOutputStream.
 used for images or executable files

• Readers and Writers are used to read/write text.

 FileReader, BufferedReader, FileWriter, BufferedWriter and
PrintWriter.
 used for text files i.e. character or string data

Copyright © Seán Kennedy

 Java IO Fundamentals
• File is the class that enables you create objects from which
you can then create actual physical files on the hard disk.

• Many of the previous classes are intended to be wrapped.

This enables low-level classes to get access to higher-level
functionality. This is for efficiency e.g. buffering.

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 IO

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 • ReadingWritingExamples.java

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 Console class
• The Console class is specifically designed for interacting
with the user.

• Console is a singleton where you use a factory method to

create the one and only instance. The constructors are all
private; thus, you never “new” it.

• ConsoleTest.java

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 IO and NIO.2

Java 11 (1Z0-819)

Copyright © Seán Kennedy

 NIO.2
• NIO.2 is a more powerful API than the legacy java.io.File
class.

• The Path interface is central to NIO.2 (Path objects are

immutable) :
Path - this interface replaces File as the representation of
a file or directory; it is a lot more powerful than File

Paths - contains static methods to create Path objects

(these objects implement the Path interface)

Files - contains static methods for working with Path

objects i.e. methods that take Path objects as parameters
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 • PathGeneral.java
• PathOperations.java

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 Resolving a Path
• To concatenate two Path objects together, use resolve().
• Resolve Concatenates i.e. Resolve to get Certified

• path1.resolve(path2) means concatenate path2 onto path1.

 strictly speaking, we are resolving path2 within path1

• resolve() does not check whether the paths exist on the hard
disk.

• If an absolute path is passed in, then that path (the absolute

path) is simply returned.
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 • ResolveExamples.java

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 Relativizing a Path
• The relativize() method constructs a relative path from one
Path to another.

• As with resolve(), the paths need not exist on the hard disk.

• If both Path’s are relative:

 relativize() assumes both Paths are in the same current working
directory.

• If both Path’s are absolute:

 relativize() ignores the current working directory and calculates
the relative path from one to the other
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 Relativizing a Path
• If the Path’s are mixed i.e. one is relative and the other absolute:
 relativize() throws an exception.

• Note that a file itself counts as one level – this will be clearer in
the examples.

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 • RelativizeExamples.java

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 Normalizing a Path
• The normalize() method removes unnecessary redundancies
in a Path, so that it resembles what you would “normally”
type in.

• .. refers to the parent directory and thus any directory

followed by .. can be removed from the path.

• . refers to the current directory and thus any . followed by

/ (or \\) can be ignored.

• normalize() is useful when comparing different Path’s.

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 • NormalizeExamples.java

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 File Attributes
• File attributes (metadata) is data about a file that is not
stored as part of the file contents. For example, the size of the
file is an attribute.

• The Files utility class contains several methods for

determining file attributes.

• If you need to read several attributes then rather than

making several method calls, one can, in a single method call,
obtain a view (a group of related attributes).

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 File Attributes
• There are 3 views:
 BasicFileAttributeView - basic set of attributes common across all
file systems.

 DosFileAttributeView - DOS/Windows systems.

 PosixFileAttributeView – Unix/Linux/Mac systems.

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 • Attributes.java
• AttributesView.java

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 Traversing a Directory tree
• Given a directory, how do we list all the .java files in that
directory tree i.e. include the sub-directories?

• Prior to the Stream API, this was accomplished with

DirectoryStream and FileVisitor. Note: DirectoryStream is not
a Stream class!

• The Stream API method is far superior and requires much

less code.

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 Traversing a Directory tree

• The NIO.2 Streams API uses a depth-first search with a

depth limit. In other words, searching begins at the root and
traverses to the leaf and then goes back up toward the root,
traversing fully down any path it may have skipped along the
way.

• As streams use lazy evaluation, Path’s are only evaluated as

they are encountered i.e. the memory required to process a
directory tree is low even if the tree includes thousands of
records.

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 Traversing a Directory tree

• The depth limit is useful where the file system may he very
large but we know the information we are searching for is near
the root.

• Note that the NIO.2 stream based methods can result is

resource leaks if not properly closed. This is because the stream
terminal operations do not close the underlying file resources.
Using try-with-resources is the cleanest solution to this issue.

• Stream<Path> find(Path start, int maxDepth,

BiPredicate<Path, BasicFileAttributes> matcher,
FileVisitOption… options) // FOLLOW_LINKS
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 IO and NIO.2

Java 11 (1Z0-819)

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 Serialisation
• Serialisation is the process of converting an in-memory Java
object and saving it to a file (byte stream).

• De-serialisation is the opposite: it is the process of converting

from a file to a Java object.

• To inform Java that your class is serialisable, you implement

the marker interface Serializable. A “marker interface” is an
interface that has no methods.

• Apply Serializable to data oriented classes as their state

is not short-lived.
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 Serialisation

• As we are serialising objects, instance variables (and not static

variables) are serialised.

• private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

although static, it is serialised as part of serialisation.
used to synchronise the class definition with the stored data
e.g. what if a new field was inserted into the class definition and you
were attempting to deserialise a file that was serialised with the old
class definition i.e. without that new field? This results in an
InvalidClassException during deserialisation.

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 Serialisation

• private transient String password;

to prevent a field from being serialised, mark it as transient.
when being deserialised, a transient field will revert to it’s default
Java value e.g. null for String, 0 for int etc…

• In summary, other than serialVersionUID, only

non-transient instance members are serialised.

• Regarding your instance variables, if they are types, ensure

that they are Serializable also. For example, if Pen is
Serializable and has an instance variable of type Nib then
if you are serialising Pen, Nib must also be Serializable.
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 Serialisation

• Serialisation requires the use of two classes:

 ObjectOutputStream
 ObjectInputStream

• These classes are considered high-level classes and will wrap

lower level classes such as FileOutputStream and
FileInputStream.

• Typically, we will start with a file stream, wrap it in a buffered

stream to improve performance and then wrap the buffered
stream with an object stream to access the
serialisation/deserialisation methods.
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 • Serialisation.java

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