Input from console, writing to file

[Geir Johnsen]

Hi all!

I am trying to read input from the console, and write it to a file. I
The thought was that the user terminates the program by simply not typing any text, just hitting enter.. I was thinking a do-/while loop could do the trick..

Anyway, here's what I got so far:

		System.out.println("Text to be written to file: ");
		Scanner in3 = new Scanner(System.in);
		
		try {

			do {
				String fromConsole = in3.nextLine();
				PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter("outfile.txt");
				out.println(fromConsole);
				out.close();
			} //do

			while (fromConsole.lenth() > 0);

		} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
			System.out.println("Sjekk om fila finnes!!");
			e.printStackTrace();
		}

This code gives me the error:

cannot find symbol
symbol : variable fromConsole
location: class TestJava2
while (fromConsole.lenth() > 0);



Any comments on this? I have no problem setting up writing one line at a time, but it is creating the loop that gives me the problem.
I would really appreciate any help.

Geir.

[Neha Daga]

thats because you have declared the string variable fromconsole within the do loop which can not be seen outside do loop. So when your while loop condition uses fromconsole it cannot find that.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Try this

String text;
while ((text = in3.nextLine()).length() > 0)
{
  . . .
}//end while

[Geir Johnsen]

Thank you both for your reply

I got it working using the following code:

                System.out.println("Text to be written to file, cancel with emty string: ");
                Scanner in3 = new Scanner(System.in);
                String text;

				try {
						File file = new File("outfile.txt");
					    PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(file);

                        while ((text = in3.nextLine()).length() > 0) {
							out.println(text);
						} 

				out.close();

                }  catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
                        e.printStackTrace();
                }

But can someone explain to me why the following line is needed:

out.close();

If it is removed, nothing is written to the file..

Br
Geir

[Campbell Ritchie]

the close() call ought to be in a finally block. It is there to make sure the Writer and the connection to the file are closed. Otherwise, that file may be inaccessible to other code.