Troubleshooting Tips

• A File object represents a file name, not an actual file. Such objects are, moreover, immutable. Thus the code

      File f1 = new File("foo");
      File f2 = new File("bar");
      f1.renameTo(f2); 
  

  will rename the file named "foo" (if it exists) to "bar". It will not change the value of the File object referred to by f1; in particular, the expression f1.getPath() will still evaluate to "foo".
• The available method of the InputStream class and its subclasses does not necessarily return the maximum number of bytes that can be read without blocking. In particular, code of the form

      int n = in.available();
      byte buf = new byte[n];
      in.read(buf); 
  

  is not guaranteed to read all of the remaining bytes from the given input stream. Similarly, the ready method of Reader and its subclasses may return false even if the stream is ready to be read.
• The read(byte[]) and read(byte[], int, int) methods of InputStream and its subclasses are not guaranteed to read all available bytes. A loop may be required, for example, in order to read a large file into an array:

      for (int off = 0; off < size;) {
          int r = in.read(buf, off, buf.length - off);
          if (r == -1) break;
          off += r;
      } 
  

  Alternatively, a BufferedInputStream may be used. Similar remarks apply to the read(char[]) and read(char[], int, int) methods of Reader and its subclasses.
• The PrintStream and PrintWriter classes suppress all I/O errors. To see whether an error has occurred, invoke the checkError method.
• PrintStream and PrintWriter objects do not always flush their output. To arrange for automatic flushing, use the two-argument constructors of these classes and specify true for the second argument.