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Java: Unable to Concatenate to file using BufferedWriter and FileWriter
I am trying to use BufferedWriter and FileWriter to concatenate the text contents of a file located in "C:\\Source"
to a file of a same name in the "C:\\Destination" directory. I am reading the contents of the source file into an ArrayList<String> , and trying to write it to attach it to the end of the file in the "C:\\Destination" directory.
I set the append parameter of FileWriter to true.
The problem is that the destination file never gets written. What am I doing wrong here?
The code:
to a file of a same name in the "C:\\Destination" directory. I am reading the contents of the source file into an ArrayList<String> , and trying to write it to attach it to the end of the file in the "C:\\Destination" directory.
I set the append parameter of FileWriter to true.
The problem is that the destination file never gets written. What am I doing wrong here?
The code:
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Iterator;
public class TestConcatenateFiles {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String relativeSourceFileName = "Test1.txt";
String sourceDirPath = "C:\\Source";
String destDirPath = "C:\\Destination";
processResultInSourceDirIfExistsInDestDir(relativeSourceFileName, sourceDirPath, destDirPath);
}
// See if file 'relativeSourceFileName' exists with earlier file date in 'destDirPath' location
// if it does, than read the file from 'destDirPath' and concatenate to this file the same filename
// in 'sourceDirPath'
private static void processResultInSourceDirIfExistsInDestDir(String relativeSourceFileName, String sourceDirPath, String destDirPath){
// See if file exists in the destination folder:
File fileOnServer = new File(destDirPath + "\\" + relativeSourceFileName);
String line = "";
ArrayList<String> linesListResultFile = new ArrayList<String>();
if(fileOnServer.exists() && !fileOnServer.isDirectory()) { // If file exists and it is not directory,
// then concatenate current test results to the file on server and save it at local
// folder to be backed up later on server.
try {
// FileReader reads text files in the default encoding:
FileReader fileReader = new FileReader(sourceDirPath + "\\" + relativeSourceFileName);
// wrap FileReader in BufferedReader:
BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(fileReader);
while((line = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null) {
linesListResultFile.add(line);
}
// Close file
bufferedReader.close();
}
catch(FileNotFoundException ex) {
System.out.println(
"File not found, unable to open file '" +
sourceDirPath + "\\" + relativeSourceFileName + "'");
}
catch(IOException ex) {
System.out.println(
"Error reading file '"
+ sourceDirPath + "\\" + relativeSourceFileName + "'");
}
}
System.out.println();
// Append to end of file on server, in a try-catch:
try{
// Open file on server, and with append = true setting concatenate to file:
FileWriter fileWriter = new FileWriter(fileOnServer.getName(),true);
BufferedWriter bufferWriter = new BufferedWriter(fileWriter);
Iterator it = linesListResultFile.iterator();
while(it.hasNext()){
bufferWriter.write((String) it.next());
}
bufferWriter.flush();
bufferWriter.close();
System.out.println("Done writing file");
}catch(IOException e){
System.out.println("Error writing file on server");
// e.printStackTrace();
}
} // End of processResultInSourceDirIfExistsInDestDir() method
}
Who is Participating?
Well, What do mean 'some debugging sysouts? I single step through it in debug mode. No errors.
No exceptions. It just doesn't write the file. I don't know what code I would put in to catch that.
No exceptions. It just doesn't write the file. I don't know what code I would put in to catch that.
System.out.println(fileOnServer.exists() && fileOnServer.isFile() && fileOnServer.canWrite());
for example
Well, it is running fine, it just doesn't write to the file.
See screenshot:
I tried some newer code that uses newer classes for the same functionality, starting from Java 7 or later, and that is flaky too (works some of the time).
I have successfully done concatenating before, by reading the file contents of old file to ArrayList<String>, closing the file, then adding the contents of the new file to the same ArrayList<String> , then opening the old file again and writing the contents of ArrayList<String> to new file. Sometimes I had to do it in such a way that I write to a temp file and rename it to the old file name to avoid errors. Really convoluted.
Did actually straightforward concatenating to text files ever work for anybody, using Java?
See screenshot:
I tried some newer code that uses newer classes for the same functionality, starting from Java 7 or later, and that is flaky too (works some of the time).
I have successfully done concatenating before, by reading the file contents of old file to ArrayList<String>, closing the file, then adding the contents of the new file to the same ArrayList<String> , then opening the old file again and writing the contents of ArrayList<String> to new file. Sometimes I had to do it in such a way that I write to a temp file and rename it to the old file name to avoid errors. Really convoluted.
Did actually straightforward concatenating to text files ever work for anybody, using Java?
MAKE SURE that the file to which you're appending is NOT opened by ANY other app (such as an editor like Notepad)
It was not. I just opened it afterwards to show you in the screenshot. My code is just a very short single class with a main method in it. Could you perhaps make a couple of folders yourself put in 2 text files with a line or two each,
and see if on your machine they get concatenated into into one of the files if you run the code?
and see if on your machine they get concatenated into into one of the files if you run the code?
I am using Windows 7 64-bit and a 32-bit Java JDK 1.7. I need to use 32 bit, because the class files need to be compatible with 64 bit and 32 bit Windows. Everything else Java runs fine on this setup.
FilileWriter doesn't work for concatenation. But, PrintWriter does exactly what I need:
Thanks for your help.
try{
FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(fileOnServer,true);
BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(fw);
PrintWriter pw = new PrintWriter(bw);
Iterator it = linesListResultFile.iterator();
while(it.hasNext()){
pw.print((String) it.next());
pw.println();
}
pw.close();
System.out.println("Done writing file");
}catch(IOException e){
System.out.println("Error writing file on server");
}
Thanks for your help.
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You want
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And you should use a PrintWriter probably