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Why does introducing a FileWriter delete all the content in the file?

I have a text file with some text in it and i'm planning on replacing certain characters in the text file. So for this i have to read the file using a buffered reader which wraps a file reader.
File file = new File("new.txt");
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
String line = null;
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(line);
}
But since i have to edit characters i have to introduce a file writer and add the code which has a string method called replace all. so the overall code will look as given below.
File file = new File("new.txt");
FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(file);
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
String line = null;
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(line);
fw.write(br.readLine().replaceAll("t", "1") + "\n");
}
Problem is when i introduce a file writer to the code (By just having the initialization part and when i run the program it deletes the content in the file regardless of adding the following line)
fw.write(br.readLine().replaceAll("t", "1") + "\n");
Why is this occurring? am i following the correct approach to edit characters in a text file?
Or is there any other way of doing this?
Thank you.

public FileWriter(String fileName,
boolean append)
Parameters:
fileName - String The system-dependent filename.
append - boolean if true, then data will be written to the end of the
file rather than the beginning.
To append data use
new FileWriter(file, true);

The problem is that you're trying to write to the file while you're reading from it. A better solution would be to create a second file, put the transformed data into it, then replace the first file with it when you're done. Or if you don't want to do that, read all of the data out of the file first, then open it for writing and write the transformed data.
Also, have you considered using a text-processing language solution such as awk, sed or perl: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/112023/how-can-i-replace-a-string-in-a-files

You need to read the file first, and then, only after you read the entire file, you can write to it.
Or you open a different file for writing and then afterwards you replace the old file with the new one.
The reason is that once you start writing to a file, it is truncated (the data that was in the file is deleted).
The only way to avoid that is to open the file in "append" mode. With that mode, you start writing at the end of the file, so you don't delete its content. However, you won't be able to modify the existing content, you will only add content.

Maybe like this
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
try {
File file = new File("/Users/alexanderkrum/IdeaProjects/printerTest/src/atmDep.txt");
Scanner myReader = new Scanner(file);
ArrayList<Integer> numbers = new ArrayList<>();
while (myReader.hasNextLine()) {
numbers.add(myReader.nextInt() + 1);
}
myReader.close();
FileWriter myWriter = new FileWriter(file);
for (Integer number :
numbers) {
myWriter.write(number.toString() + '\n');
}
myWriter.close();
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
System.out.println("An error occurred.");
e.printStackTrace();
}
}

Just add at last :
fw.close();
this will close it ,then it will not delete anything in the file.
:)

How can I get this buffered writer to write one line at a time? JAVA

I am creating a little program that will amend driver letters saved in a program file. The method works in the sense that it locates the file correctly and amends the drive letter correctly.
However when I open the file after it has been changed all the Directory listings are all on one line but they need to be 1 directory per line. I've tried saving each individual line to an Array List then printing them out like that but that didn't seem to work for me so was wondering if anyone could help?
Much appreciated.
P.S. Been messing around trying to make it work and also now ran into another issue where it is now printing them all out into one line but with spaces in between e.g:
S:\ D A T A\ S A G E\
public class copy
{
private String newDriveLetter;
private String line;
private Path[]sageFolders;
private FileReader fileReader;
private BufferedReader bufferedReader;
private FileWriter fileWriter;
private BufferedWriter bufferedWriter;
private List<String> lines = new ArrayList<String>();
public void scanFiles() throws IOException{
try
{
System.out.println("Sage 2015 is Installed on this machine");
File companyFile = new File(sageFolders[8] + "\\COMPANY");
fileReader = new FileReader(companyFile);
bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(fileReader);
while((line = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null)
{
if(line.contains("F"))
{
line = line.replace("F:\\","S:\\");
lines.add(line);
}
}
//Close the Readers
fileReader.close();
bufferedReader.close();
fileWriter = new FileWriter(companyFile);
bufferedWriter = new BufferedWriter(fileWriter);
for(String s : lines)
{
bufferedWriter.write(s);
}
bufferedWriter.flush();
bufferedWriter.close();
}
catch(FileNotFoundException e)
{
System.out.println("File not Found: Moving onto next Version");
}
}

The problem is that readLine() reads a whole line, and then tosses away the line ending. From the documentation:
A String containing the contents of the line, not including any line-termination characters, or null if the end of the stream has been reached
So you have to add it back again, possibly using the preferred line ending for your platform:
bufferedWriter.write(String.format("%s%n", s);
here %s is the String and %n is the platform dependent line ending.
Alternatively, as Ransom Briggs indicates, you may use newline(). newLine() is easier to read and will perform slightly better:
bufferedWriter.write(s);
bufferedWriter.newLine();
I've left the String.format method in as it is a more general approach of adding newlines to strings.

Try PrintWriter - so new PrintWriter(bufferedWriter).println(s).

Add this after bufferedWriter.write(s);:
bufferedWriter.write(System.getProperty("line.separator", "\n"));
This will add the system specific line separator, or "\n" if the system property is not set.

Junk characters while reading text file in java

I have a java which calls windows bat file which does some processing and generates the output file.
Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd /c "+filename);
Now when reading the file from following program. (filexists() is function which checks whether file exists or not). Output file contains only single line
if ( filexists("output.txt") == true)
{ String FileLine;
FileInputStream fstream = new FileInputStream("output.txt");
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(fstream));
FileLine = br.readLine();
fstream.close();
filein.close();
}
Variable FileLine contains 3 junk charcters in the starting. I also checked few other files in the progam and no file has this issue except for the fact it is created with Runtime function.
9087.
As you can see three junk characters are coming in the output file. When opened with Notepad++, i am not able to see those junk characters.
Please suggest

This is happening because you have not mentioned the file encoding while creating your FileInputStream.Assuming your file is UTF-8 encoded, you need to do something like this
new FileInputStream("output.txt, "UTF-8"));
Change the encoding as per the encoding of your file

That looks like the byte order mark for UTF-8 encoding. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark

May be its an issue with file encoding. Though I am not sure.
Can you please try following piece of code and see if it works for you
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(
new InputStreamReader( new FileInputStream("output.txt"), "UTF8"));
String str;
while ((str = in.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(str);
}

Check line for unprintable characters while reading text file

My program must read text files - line by line.
Files in UTF-8.
I am not sure that files are correct - can contain unprintable characters.
Is possible check for it without going to byte level?
Thanks.

Open the file with a FileInputStream, then use an InputStreamReader with the UTF-8 Charset to read characters from the stream, and use a BufferedReader to read lines, e.g. via BufferedReader#readLine, which will give you a string. Once you have the string, you can check for characters that aren't what you consider to be printable.
E.g. (without error checking), using try-with-resources (which is in vaguely modern Java version):
String line;
try (
InputStream fis = new FileInputStream("the_file_name");
InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(fis, Charset.forName("UTF-8"));
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(isr);
) {
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
// Deal with the line
}
}

While it's not hard to do this manually using BufferedReader and InputStreamReader, I'd use Guava:
List<String> lines = Files.readLines(file, Charsets.UTF_8);
You can then do whatever you like with those lines.
EDIT: Note that this will read the whole file into memory in one go. In most cases that's actually fine - and it's certainly simpler than reading it line by line, processing each line as you read it. If it's an enormous file, you may need to do it that way as per T.J. Crowder's answer.

Just found out that with the Java NIO (java.nio.file.*) you can easily write:
List<String> lines=Files.readAllLines(Paths.get("/tmp/test.csv"), StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
for(String line:lines){
System.out.println(line);
}
instead of dealing with FileInputStreams and BufferedReaders...

If you want to check a string has unprintable characters you can use a regular expression
[^\p{Print}]

How about below:
FileReader fileReader = new FileReader(new File("test.txt"));
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(fileReader);
String line = null;
// if no more lines the readLine() returns null
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
// reading lines until the end of the file
}
Source: http://devmain.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/java-quick-way-to-read-or-write-to-file.html

I can find following ways to do.
private static final String fileName = "C:/Input.txt";
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
Stream<String> lines = Files.lines(Paths.get(fileName));
lines.toArray(String[]::new);
List<String> readAllLines = Files.readAllLines(Paths.get(fileName));
readAllLines.forEach(s -> System.out.println(s));
File file = new File(fileName);
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(file);
while (scanner.hasNext()) {
System.out.println(scanner.next());
}

The answer by #T.J.Crowder is Java 6 - in java 7 the valid answer is the one by #McIntosh - though its use of Charset for name for UTF -8 is discouraged:
List<String> lines = Files.readAllLines(Paths.get("/tmp/test.csv"),
StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
for(String line: lines){ /* DO */ }
Reminds a lot of the Guava way posted by Skeet above - and of course same caveats apply. That is, for big files (Java 7):
BufferedReader reader = Files.newBufferedReader(path, StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
for (String line = reader.readLine(); line != null; line = reader.readLine()) {}

If every char in the file is properly encoded in UTF-8, you won't have any problem reading it using a reader with the UTF-8 encoding. Up to you to check every char of the file and see if you consider it printable or not.

Read XML, Replace Text and Write to same XML file via Java

Currently I am trying something very simple. I am looking through an XML document for a certain phrase upon which I try to replace it. The problem I am having is that when I read the lines I store each line into a StringBuffer. When I write the it to a document everything is written on a single line.
Here my code:
File xmlFile = new File("abc.xml")
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReade(xmlFile));
String line = null;
while((line = br.readLine())!= null)
{
if(line.indexOf("abc") != -1)
{
line = line.replaceAll("abc","xyz");
}
sb.append(line);
}
br.close();
BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(xmlFile));
bw.write(sb.toString());
bw.close();
I am assuming I need a new line character when I prefer sb.append but unfortunately I don't know which character to use as "\n" does not work.
Thanks in advance!
P.S. I figured there must be a way to use Xalan to format the XML file after I write to it or something. Not sure how to do that though.

The readline reads everything between the newline characters so when you write back out, obviously the newline characters are missing. These characters depend on the OS: windows uses two characters to do a newline, unix uses one for example. To be OS agnostic, retrieve the system property "line.separator":
String newline = System.getProperty("line.separator");
and append it to your stringbuffer:
sb.append(line).append(newline);

Modified as suggested by Brel, your text-substituting approach should work, and it will work well enough for simple applications.
If things start to get a little hairier, and you end up wanting to select elements based on their position in the XML structure, and if you need to be sure to change element text but not tag text (think <abc>abc</abc>), then you'll want to call in in the cavalry and process the XML with an XML parser.
Essentially you read in a Document using a DocuemntBuilder, you hop around the document's nodes doing whatever you need to, and then ask the Document to write itself back to file. Or do you ask the parser? Anyway, most XML parsers have a handful of options that let you format the XML output: You can specify indentation (or not) and maybe newlines for every opening tag, that kinda thing, to make your XML look pretty.

Sb would be the StringBuffer object, which has not been instantiated in this example. This can added before the while loop:
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();

Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);
String filePath = scan.next();
String oldString = "old_string";
String newString = "new_string";
String oldContent = "";
BufferedReader br = null;
FileWriter writer = null;
File xmlFile = new File(filePath);
try {
br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(xmlFile));
String line = br.readLine();
while (line != null) {
oldContent = oldContent + line + System.lineSeparator();
line = br.readLine();
}
String newContent = oldContent.replaceAll(oldString, newString);
writer = new FileWriter(xmlFile);
writer.write(newContent);
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
try {
scan.close();
br.close();
writer.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}