Question on RandomAccessFile

[Veena Pointi]

In R&H it is given that
"Constructing an instance of RandomAccessFile is like constructing an instance of File :No file is created on the file system."
But the following code creates ab.txt .

import java.io.*;
class randfile{
public static void main(String args[]) throws FileNotFoundException{
RandomAccessFile rf=new RandomAccessFile("ab.txt","rw");
}
}

How?Is R&H wrong?
Veena

[Barry Gaunt]

From the API:

RandomAccessFile(File file, String mode)
          Creates a random access file stream to read from, and optionally to write to, the file specified by the File argument.
RandomAccessFile(String name, String mode)
          Creates a random access file stream to read from, and optionally to write to, a file with the specified name.  

So it does look there is some discrepancy here.
Could be that there is no file until the stream get s (maybe) written to, flushed, and closed.
What's R&H?
-Barry
[ August 12, 2002: Message edited by: Barry Gaunt ]

[Veena Pointi]

R&H is short name for the book Java2 Certification Study Guide by Simon Roberts & Philip Heller

[Barry Gaunt]

Sorry don't have it.

[zarina mohammad]

In R&H it is given that
"Constructing an instance of RandomAccessFile is like constructing an instance of File :No file is created on the file system."

veena,
another point to note in R&H is that RandomAccessFile creates a file if does not exist only if the instance is created in the "rw" mode. if you run the same code in "r", it throws a FileNotFound exception

import java.io.*;
class randfile
{
public static void main(String args[]) throws FileNotFoundException{
RandomAccessFile rf=new RandomAccessFile("abcd.txt","r");
}
}  

-zarina

[biju joseph]

Is there IO for certification exam 1.4?

[Ron Newman]

No, the 1.4 exam does not include AWT or IO.

[Barkat Mardhani]

In R&H it is given that
"Constructing an instance of RandomAccessFile is like constructing an instance of File :No file is created on the file system."

Hi Veena, Zarina:
Is it possible that R&H is making the point that
no phyiscal file will be created on file system
immediately after the instance of RandomAccessfile
is created. But as soon as you start writing to
this file, the file will appear at file system level...
Thanks
Barkat
[ August 12, 2002: Message edited by: Barkat Mardhani ]
[ August 12, 2002: Message edited by: Barkat Mardhani ]