Java 5 and Binary Files

[James Chegwidden]

Is the combination of FileInputStream/FileOutputStream with DataInputStream/DataInputStream still the prefered way to teach Binary Files in Java 5.

Some books use File class since it handles both text and binary files- but it add another layer of chaining:

 File aFile = new File(test.dat)
       FileOutputStream aFileStream = new FileOutputStream(aFile);
       DataOutputStream aDataStream = new DataOutputStream (aFileStream);  

Could a DataOutputStream directly handle the File class:

File aFile = new File(test.dat)
       DataOutputStream aDataStream = new DataOutputStream(aFile); 
  

Haven't tryed it yet- asking for opinions about the Binary Files at this point..Thanks JC

[Jesper de Jong]

The File class is just a representation of a pathname or filename in the file system. It doesn't have anything to do with the contents of the file.

Your second piece of code will not compile, because class java.io.DataOutputStream does not have a constructor that takes a java.io.File as the argument. You could have discovered that quickly by writing a small program yourself.