A PrintStream adds functionality to another output stream, namely the ability to print representations of various data values conveniently. Two other features are provided as well. Unlike other output streams, a PrintStream never throws an IOException; instead, exceptional situations merely set an internal flag that can be tested via the checkError method. Optionally, a PrintStream can be created so as to flush automatically; this means that the flush method is automatically invoked after a byte array is written, one of the println methods is invoked, or a newline character or byte ('\n') is written.

All characters printed by a PrintStream are converted into bytes using the platform's default character encoding. The PrintWriter class should be used in situations that require writing characters rather than bytes.

@version
1.32, 04/07/16
@author
Frank Yellin
@author
Mark Reinhold
@since
JDK1.0
Create a new print stream. This stream will not flush automatically.
Parameters
outThe output stream to which values and objects will be printed
Create a new print stream.
Parameters
outThe output stream to which values and objects will be printed
autoFlushA boolean; if true, the output buffer will be flushed whenever a byte array is written, one of the println methods is invoked, or a newline character or byte ('\n') is written
Create a new print stream.
Parameters
outThe output stream to which values and objects will be printed
autoFlushA boolean; if true, the output buffer will be flushed whenever a byte array is written, one of the println methods is invoked, or a newline character or byte ('\n') is written
encodingThe name of a supported character encoding
Throws
UnsupportedEncodingException If the named encoding is not supported
Creates a new print stream, without automatic line flushing, with the specified file name. This convenience constructor creates the necessary intermediate OutputStreamWriter , which will encode characters using the for this instance of the Java virtual machine.
Parameters
fileName The name of the file to use as the destination of this print stream. If the file exists, then it will be truncated to zero size; otherwise, a new file will be created. The output will be written to the file and is buffered.
Throws
FileNotFoundException If the given file object does not denote an existing, writable regular file and a new regular file of that name cannot be created, or if some other error occurs while opening or creating the file
SecurityException If a security manager is present and {@link SecurityManager#checkWrite checkWrite(fileName)} denies write access to the file
@since
1.5
Creates a new print stream, without automatic line flushing, with the specified file name and charset. This convenience constructor creates the necessary intermediate OutputStreamWriter , which will encode characters using the provided charset.
Parameters
fileName The name of the file to use as the destination of this print stream. If the file exists, then it will be truncated to zero size; otherwise, a new file will be created. The output will be written to the file and is buffered.
csn The name of a supported {@linkplain java.nio.charset.Charset charset}
Throws
FileNotFoundException If the given file object does not denote an existing, writable regular file and a new regular file of that name cannot be created, or if some other error occurs while opening or creating the file
SecurityException If a security manager is present and {@link SecurityManager#checkWrite checkWrite(fileName)} denies write access to the file
UnsupportedEncodingException If the named charset is not supported
@since
1.5
Creates a new print stream, without automatic line flushing, with the specified file. This convenience constructor creates the necessary intermediate OutputStreamWriter , which will encode characters using the for this instance of the Java virtual machine.
Parameters
file The file to use as the destination of this print stream. If the file exists, then it will be truncated to zero size; otherwise, a new file will be created. The output will be written to the file and is buffered.
Throws
FileNotFoundException If the given file object does not denote an existing, writable regular file and a new regular file of that name cannot be created, or if some other error occurs while opening or creating the file
SecurityException If a security manager is present and {@link SecurityManager#checkWrite checkWrite(file.getPath())} denies write access to the file
@since
1.5
Creates a new print stream, without automatic line flushing, with the specified file and charset. This convenience constructor creates the necessary intermediate OutputStreamWriter , which will encode characters using the provided charset.
Parameters
file The file to use as the destination of this print stream. If the file exists, then it will be truncated to zero size; otherwise, a new file will be created. The output will be written to the file and is buffered.
csn The name of a supported {@linkplain java.nio.charset.Charset charset}
Throws
FileNotFoundException If the given file object does not denote an existing, writable regular file and a new regular file of that name cannot be created, or if some other error occurs while opening or creating the file
SecurityException If a security manager is presentand {@link SecurityManager#checkWrite checkWrite(file.getPath())} denies write access to the file
UnsupportedEncodingException If the named charset is not supported
@since
1.5
Appends the specified character to this Appendable.
Parameters
c The character to append
Return
A reference to this Appendable
Throws
IOException If an I/O error occurs
Appends the specified character sequence to this Appendable.

Depending on which class implements the character sequence csq, the entire sequence may not be appended. For instance, if csq is a java.nio.CharBuffer then the subsequence to append is defined by the buffer's position and limit.

Parameters
csq The character sequence to append. If csq is null, then the four characters "null" are appended to this Appendable.
Return
A reference to this Appendable
Throws
IOException If an I/O error occurs
Appends a subsequence of the specified character sequence to this Appendable.

An invocation of this method of the form out.append(csq, start, end) when csq is not null, behaves in exactly the same way as the invocation

     out.append(csq.subSequence(start, end)) 
Parameters
csq The character sequence from which a subsequence will be appended. If csq is null, then characters will be appended as if csq contained the four characters "null".
start The index of the first character in the subsequence
end The index of the character following the last character in the subsequence
Return
A reference to this Appendable
Throws
IndexOutOfBoundsException If start or end are negative, start is greater than end, or end is greater than csq.length()
IOException If an I/O error occurs
Flush the stream and check its error state. The internal error state is set to true when the underlying output stream throws an IOException other than InterruptedIOException, and when the setError method is invoked. If an operation on the underlying output stream throws an InterruptedIOException, then the PrintStream converts the exception back into an interrupt by doing:
     Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
 
or the equivalent.
Return
True if and only if this stream has encountered an IOException other than InterruptedIOException, or the setError method has been invoked
Close the stream. This is done by flushing the stream and then closing the underlying output stream.
Indicates whether some other object is "equal to" this one.

The equals method implements an equivalence relation on non-null object references:

  • It is reflexive: for any non-null reference value x, x.equals(x) should return true.
  • It is symmetric: for any non-null reference values x and y, x.equals(y) should return true if and only if y.equals(x) returns true.
  • It is transitive: for any non-null reference values x, y, and z, if x.equals(y) returns true and y.equals(z) returns true, then x.equals(z) should return true.
  • It is consistent: for any non-null reference values x and y, multiple invocations of x.equals(y) consistently return true or consistently return false, provided no information used in equals comparisons on the objects is modified.
  • For any non-null reference value x, x.equals(null) should return false.

The equals method for class Object implements the most discriminating possible equivalence relation on objects; that is, for any non-null reference values x and y, this method returns true if and only if x and y refer to the same object (x == y has the value true).

Note that it is generally necessary to override the hashCode method whenever this method is overridden, so as to maintain the general contract for the hashCode method, which states that equal objects must have equal hash codes.

Parameters
objthe reference object with which to compare.
Return
true if this object is the same as the obj argument; false otherwise.
Flush the stream. This is done by writing any buffered output bytes to the underlying output stream and then flushing that stream.
Writes a formatted string to this output stream using the specified format string and arguments.
Parameters
l The {@linkplain java.util.Locale locale} to apply during formatting. If l is null then no localization is applied.
format A format string as described in Format string syntax
args Arguments referenced by the format specifiers in the format string. If there are more arguments than format specifiers, the extra arguments are ignored. The number of arguments is variable and may be zero. The maximum number of arguments is limited by the maximum dimension of a Java array as defined by the Java Virtual Machine Specification. The behaviour on a null argument depends on the conversion.
Return
This output stream
Throws
IllegalFormatException If a format string contains an illegal syntax, a format specifier that is incompatible with the given arguments, insufficient arguments given the format string, or other illegal conditions. For specification of all possible formatting errors, see the Details section of the formatter class specification.
NullPointerException If the format is null
@since
1.5
Writes a formatted string to this output stream using the specified format string and arguments.

The locale always used is the one returned by Locale.getDefault() , regardless of any previous invocations of other formatting methods on this object.

Parameters
format A format string as described in Format string syntax
args Arguments referenced by the format specifiers in the format string. If there are more arguments than format specifiers, the extra arguments are ignored. The number of arguments is variable and may be zero. The maximum number of arguments is limited by the maximum dimension of a Java array as defined by the Java Virtual Machine Specification. The behaviour on a null argument depends on the conversion.
Return
This output stream
Throws
IllegalFormatException If a format string contains an illegal syntax, a format specifier that is incompatible with the given arguments, insufficient arguments given the format string, or other illegal conditions. For specification of all possible formatting errors, see the Details section of the formatter class specification.
NullPointerException If the format is null
@since
1.5
Returns the runtime class of an object. That Class object is the object that is locked by static synchronized methods of the represented class.
Return
The java.lang.Class object that represents the runtime class of the object. The result is of type {@code Class} where X is the erasure of the static type of the expression on which getClass is called.
Returns a hash code value for the object. This method is supported for the benefit of hashtables such as those provided by java.util.Hashtable.

The general contract of hashCode is:

  • Whenever it is invoked on the same object more than once during an execution of a Java application, the hashCode method must consistently return the same integer, provided no information used in equals comparisons on the object is modified. This integer need not remain consistent from one execution of an application to another execution of the same application.
  • If two objects are equal according to the equals(Object) method, then calling the hashCode method on each of the two objects must produce the same integer result.
  • It is not required that if two objects are unequal according to the method, then calling the hashCode method on each of the two objects must produce distinct integer results. However, the programmer should be aware that producing distinct integer results for unequal objects may improve the performance of hashtables.

As much as is reasonably practical, the hashCode method defined by class Object does return distinct integers for distinct objects. (This is typically implemented by converting the internal address of the object into an integer, but this implementation technique is not required by the JavaTM programming language.)

Return
a hash code value for this object.
Wakes up a single thread that is waiting on this object's monitor. If any threads are waiting on this object, one of them is chosen to be awakened. The choice is arbitrary and occurs at the discretion of the implementation. A thread waits on an object's monitor by calling one of the wait methods.

The awakened thread will not be able to proceed until the current thread relinquishes the lock on this object. The awakened thread will compete in the usual manner with any other threads that might be actively competing to synchronize on this object; for example, the awakened thread enjoys no reliable privilege or disadvantage in being the next thread to lock this object.

This method should only be called by a thread that is the owner of this object's monitor. A thread becomes the owner of the object's monitor in one of three ways:

  • By executing a synchronized instance method of that object.
  • By executing the body of a synchronized statement that synchronizes on the object.
  • For objects of type Class, by executing a synchronized static method of that class.

Only one thread at a time can own an object's monitor.

Throws
IllegalMonitorStateExceptionif the current thread is not the owner of this object's monitor.
Wakes up all threads that are waiting on this object's monitor. A thread waits on an object's monitor by calling one of the wait methods.

The awakened threads will not be able to proceed until the current thread relinquishes the lock on this object. The awakened threads will compete in the usual manner with any other threads that might be actively competing to synchronize on this object; for example, the awakened threads enjoy no reliable privilege or disadvantage in being the next thread to lock this object.

This method should only be called by a thread that is the owner of this object's monitor. See the notify method for a description of the ways in which a thread can become the owner of a monitor.

Throws
IllegalMonitorStateExceptionif the current thread is not the owner of this object's monitor.
Print a boolean value. The string produced by is translated into bytes according to the platform's default character encoding, and these bytes are written in exactly the manner of the method.
Parameters
bThe boolean to be printed
Print a character. The character is translated into one or more bytes according to the platform's default character encoding, and these bytes are written in exactly the manner of the method.
Parameters
cThe char to be printed
Print an array of characters. The characters are converted into bytes according to the platform's default character encoding, and these bytes are written in exactly the manner of the method.
Parameters
sThe array of chars to be printed
Throws
NullPointerExceptionIf s is null
Print a double-precision floating-point number. The string produced by is translated into bytes according to the platform's default character encoding, and these bytes are written in exactly the manner of the method.
Parameters
dThe double to be printed
Print a floating-point number. The string produced by is translated into bytes according to the platform's default character encoding, and these bytes are written in exactly the manner of the method.
Parameters
fThe float to be printed
Print an integer. The string produced by is translated into bytes according to the platform's default character encoding, and these bytes are written in exactly the manner of the method.
Parameters
iThe int to be printed
Print a long integer. The string produced by is translated into bytes according to the platform's default character encoding, and these bytes are written in exactly the manner of the method.
Parameters
lThe long to be printed
Print an object. The string produced by the method is translated into bytes according to the platform's default character encoding, and these bytes are written in exactly the manner of the method.
Parameters
objThe Object to be printed
Print a string. If the argument is null then the string "null" is printed. Otherwise, the string's characters are converted into bytes according to the platform's default character encoding, and these bytes are written in exactly the manner of the method.
Parameters
sThe String to be printed
A convenience method to write a formatted string to this output stream using the specified format string and arguments.

An invocation of this method of the form out.printf(l, format, args) behaves in exactly the same way as the invocation

     out.format(l, format, args) 
Parameters
l The {@linkplain java.util.Locale locale} to apply during formatting. If l is null then no localization is applied.
format A format string as described in Format string syntax
args Arguments referenced by the format specifiers in the format string. If there are more arguments than format specifiers, the extra arguments are ignored. The number of arguments is variable and may be zero. The maximum number of arguments is limited by the maximum dimension of a Java array as defined by the Java Virtual Machine Specification. The behaviour on a null argument depends on the conversion.
Return
This output stream
Throws
IllegalFormatException If a format string contains an illegal syntax, a format specifier that is incompatible with the given arguments, insufficient arguments given the format string, or other illegal conditions. For specification of all possible formatting errors, see the Details section of the formatter class specification.
NullPointerException If the format is null
@since
1.5
A convenience method to write a formatted string to this output stream using the specified format string and arguments.

An invocation of this method of the form out.printf(format, args) behaves in exactly the same way as the invocation

     out.format(format, args) 
Parameters
format A format string as described in Format string syntax
args Arguments referenced by the format specifiers in the format string. If there are more arguments than format specifiers, the extra arguments are ignored. The number of arguments is variable and may be zero. The maximum number of arguments is limited by the maximum dimension of a Java array as defined by the Java Virtual Machine Specification. The behaviour on a null argument depends on the conversion.
Return
This output stream
Throws
IllegalFormatException If a format string contains an illegal syntax, a format specifier that is incompatible with the given arguments, insufficient arguments given the format string, or other illegal conditions. For specification of all possible formatting errors, see the Details section of the formatter class specification.
NullPointerException If the format is null
@since
1.5
Terminate the current line by writing the line separator string. The line separator string is defined by the system property line.separator, and is not necessarily a single newline character ('\n').
Print a boolean and then terminate the line. This method behaves as though it invokes and then .
Parameters
xThe boolean to be printed
Print a character and then terminate the line. This method behaves as though it invokes and then .
Parameters
xThe char to be printed.
Print an array of characters and then terminate the line. This method behaves as though it invokes and then .
Parameters
xan array of chars to print.
Print a double and then terminate the line. This method behaves as though it invokes and then .
Parameters
xThe double to be printed.
Print a float and then terminate the line. This method behaves as though it invokes and then .
Parameters
xThe float to be printed.
Print an integer and then terminate the line. This method behaves as though it invokes and then .
Parameters
xThe int to be printed.
Print a long and then terminate the line. This method behaves as though it invokes and then .
Parameters
xa The long to be printed.
Print an Object and then terminate the line. This method behaves as though it invokes and then .
Parameters
xThe Object to be printed.
Print a String and then terminate the line. This method behaves as though it invokes and then .
Parameters
xThe String to be printed.
Returns a string representation of the object. In general, the toString method returns a string that "textually represents" this object. The result should be a concise but informative representation that is easy for a person to read. It is recommended that all subclasses override this method.

The toString method for class Object returns a string consisting of the name of the class of which the object is an instance, the at-sign character `@', and the unsigned hexadecimal representation of the hash code of the object. In other words, this method returns a string equal to the value of:

 getClass().getName() + '@' + Integer.toHexString(hashCode())
 
Return
a string representation of the object.
Causes current thread to wait until another thread invokes the method or the method for this object. In other words, this method behaves exactly as if it simply performs the call wait(0).

The current thread must own this object's monitor. The thread releases ownership of this monitor and waits until another thread notifies threads waiting on this object's monitor to wake up either through a call to the notify method or the notifyAll method. The thread then waits until it can re-obtain ownership of the monitor and resumes execution.

As in the one argument version, interrupts and spurious wakeups are possible, and this method should always be used in a loop:

     synchronized (obj) {
         while (<condition does not hold>)
             obj.wait();
         ... // Perform action appropriate to condition
     }
 
This method should only be called by a thread that is the owner of this object's monitor. See the notify method for a description of the ways in which a thread can become the owner of a monitor.
Throws
IllegalMonitorStateExceptionif the current thread is not the owner of the object's monitor.
InterruptedExceptionif another thread interrupted the current thread before or while the current thread was waiting for a notification. The interrupted status of the current thread is cleared when this exception is thrown.
Causes current thread to wait until either another thread invokes the method or the method for this object, or a specified amount of time has elapsed.

The current thread must own this object's monitor.

This method causes the current thread (call it T) to place itself in the wait set for this object and then to relinquish any and all synchronization claims on this object. Thread T becomes disabled for thread scheduling purposes and lies dormant until one of four things happens:

  • Some other thread invokes the notify method for this object and thread T happens to be arbitrarily chosen as the thread to be awakened.
  • Some other thread invokes the notifyAll method for this object.
  • Some other thread interrupts thread T.
  • The specified amount of real time has elapsed, more or less. If timeout is zero, however, then real time is not taken into consideration and the thread simply waits until notified.
The thread T is then removed from the wait set for this object and re-enabled for thread scheduling. It then competes in the usual manner with other threads for the right to synchronize on the object; once it has gained control of the object, all its synchronization claims on the object are restored to the status quo ante - that is, to the situation as of the time that the wait method was invoked. Thread T then returns from the invocation of the wait method. Thus, on return from the wait method, the synchronization state of the object and of thread T is exactly as it was when the wait method was invoked.

A thread can also wake up without being notified, interrupted, or timing out, a so-called spurious wakeup. While this will rarely occur in practice, applications must guard against it by testing for the condition that should have caused the thread to be awakened, and continuing to wait if the condition is not satisfied. In other words, waits should always occur in loops, like this one:

     synchronized (obj) {
         while (<condition does not hold>)
             obj.wait(timeout);
         ... // Perform action appropriate to condition
     }
 
(For more information on this topic, see Section 3.2.3 in Doug Lea's "Concurrent Programming in Java (Second Edition)" (Addison-Wesley, 2000), or Item 50 in Joshua Bloch's "Effective Java Programming Language Guide" (Addison-Wesley, 2001).

If the current thread is interrupted by another thread while it is waiting, then an InterruptedException is thrown. This exception is not thrown until the lock status of this object has been restored as described above.

Note that the wait method, as it places the current thread into the wait set for this object, unlocks only this object; any other objects on which the current thread may be synchronized remain locked while the thread waits.

This method should only be called by a thread that is the owner of this object's monitor. See the notify method for a description of the ways in which a thread can become the owner of a monitor.

Parameters
timeoutthe maximum time to wait in milliseconds.
Throws
IllegalArgumentExceptionif the value of timeout is negative.
IllegalMonitorStateExceptionif the current thread is not the owner of the object's monitor.
InterruptedExceptionif another thread interrupted the current thread before or while the current thread was waiting for a notification. The interrupted status of the current thread is cleared when this exception is thrown.
Causes current thread to wait until another thread invokes the method or the method for this object, or some other thread interrupts the current thread, or a certain amount of real time has elapsed.

This method is similar to the wait method of one argument, but it allows finer control over the amount of time to wait for a notification before giving up. The amount of real time, measured in nanoseconds, is given by:

 1000000*timeout+nanos

In all other respects, this method does the same thing as the method of one argument. In particular, wait(0, 0) means the same thing as wait(0).

The current thread must own this object's monitor. The thread releases ownership of this monitor and waits until either of the following two conditions has occurred:

  • Another thread notifies threads waiting on this object's monitor to wake up either through a call to the notify method or the notifyAll method.
  • The timeout period, specified by timeout milliseconds plus nanos nanoseconds arguments, has elapsed.

The thread then waits until it can re-obtain ownership of the monitor and resumes execution.

As in the one argument version, interrupts and spurious wakeups are possible, and this method should always be used in a loop:

     synchronized (obj) {
         while (<condition does not hold>)
             obj.wait(timeout, nanos);
         ... // Perform action appropriate to condition
     }
 
This method should only be called by a thread that is the owner of this object's monitor. See the notify method for a description of the ways in which a thread can become the owner of a monitor.
Parameters
timeoutthe maximum time to wait in milliseconds.
nanosadditional time, in nanoseconds range 0-999999.
Throws
IllegalArgumentExceptionif the value of timeout is negative or the value of nanos is not in the range 0-999999.
IllegalMonitorStateExceptionif the current thread is not the owner of this object's monitor.
InterruptedExceptionif another thread interrupted the current thread before or while the current thread was waiting for a notification. The interrupted status of the current thread is cleared when this exception is thrown.
Writes b.length bytes to this output stream.

The write method of FilterOutputStream calls its write method of three arguments with the arguments b, 0, and b.length.

Note that this method does not call the one-argument write method of its underlying stream with the single argument b.

Parameters
bthe data to be written.
Throws
IOExceptionif an I/O error occurs.
Write len bytes from the specified byte array starting at offset off to this stream. If automatic flushing is enabled then the flush method will be invoked.

Note that the bytes will be written as given; to write characters that will be translated according to the platform's default character encoding, use the print(char) or println(char) methods.

Parameters
bufA byte array
offOffset from which to start taking bytes
lenNumber of bytes to write
Write the specified byte to this stream. If the byte is a newline and automatic flushing is enabled then the flush method will be invoked.

Note that the byte is written as given; to write a character that will be translated according to the platform's default character encoding, use the print(char) or println(char) methods.

Parameters
bThe byte to be written