FileWriter and PrintWriter won't output to file

Question

I have this code

public User createnewproflie() throws IOException
{
    FileWriter fwriter = new FileWriter("users.txt",true); //creates new obj that permits to append text to existing file
    PrintWriter userfile = new PrintWriter(fwriter); //creates new obj that prints appending to file as the arg of the obj is a pointer(?) to the obj that permits to append
    String filename= "users.txt";
    Scanner userFile = new Scanner(filename); //creates new obj that reads from file
    User usr=new User(); //creates new user istance
    String usrname = JOptionPane.showInputDialog("Please enter user name: "); //acquires usrname

    userfile.println("USER: "+usrname+"\nHIGHSCORE: 0\nLASTPLAY: 0");     //writes usrname in file
    userfile.flush();
    usr.setName(usrname); //gives usr the selected usname

    return usr;
}

and it doesn't output on the file... can someone help please? i knew that flush would output all of the buffered text but it doesn't seem to work for some strange reason...

I was able to run your code and get the file saving correctly. In my file I get the output USER: adsfdsf HIGHSCORE: 0 LASTPLAY: 0 Try giving a fullpath for users.txt like "C:/Temp/users.txt" so you know exactly where the output file gets generated. — Jerome Anthony, Dec 01 '14 at 00:43

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 01 '14 at 00:33

You can use a String with a FileWriter but a Scanner(String) produces values scanned from the specified string (not from a File). Pass a File to the Scanner constructor (and it's a good idea to pass the same File to your FileWriter). And you need to close() it before you can read it; maybe with a try-with-resources

File f = new File("users.txt");
try (FileWriter fwriter = new FileWriter(f,true);
    PrintWriter userfile = new PrintWriter(fwriter);) {
    // ... Write stuff to userfile
} catch (Exception e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}
Scanner userFile = new Scanner(f);

Finally, I usually prefer something like File f = new File(System.getProperty("user.home"), "users.txt"); so that the file is saved in the user home directory.

Good point on the Scanner, but the OP isn't actually using the Scanner in his example code (note `userFile` versus `userfile`), which leads me to believe that something else is causing the issue. — FThompson, Dec 01 '14 at 00:37

FileWriter and PrintWriter won't output to file

1 Answers1