created: 06/20/00; revised: 07/08/02
CHAPTER 86 — Reading Binary Files
Recall that binary files are those whose bytes might hold any possible pattern. Binary files store data that has not been translated into character form. Of course, a binary file can store character data mixed in with its other data types. A file that exclusively stores character data is called a text file.
The subclasses of InputStream
are designed for byte-oriented input from any source.
Many types of data sources of data can
serve as an InputStream.
However, in this chapter, the source will be a file on the hard disk.
Chapter Topics:
- Reading binary files.
- Advantages of binary files.
- DataInputSteam
- FileInputSteam
- BufferedInputSteam
- Reading and writing integers.
- Reading and writing single bytes.
QUESTION 1:
You have found an old hard drive in a box of junk hidden behind a water cooler. On it, you find a mysterious file. It looks like it might be a file of 32-bit integers. Can you write a Java program to read it?