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| Chapter 24 The java.io Package |

## 24.52 java.io.PrintStream (JDK 1.0)

###

This class is a `FilterOutputStream` that implements a number of methods for displaying textual representation of Java primitive data types. The `print()` methods output a standard textual representation of each data type. The `println()` methods do the same, and follow that representation with a newline. The methods convert various Java primitive types to `String` representations and then output the resulting string. When an `Object` is passed to a `print()` or `println()`, it is converted to a `String` by calling its `toString()` method.

`PrintStream` is the `OutputStream` type that makes it easiest to output text. As such, it is the most commonly used of the output streams. The `System.out` variable is a `PrintStream`.

Note that in Java 1.0 this class does not handle Unicode characters correctly--it discards the top 8 bits of all 16-bit characters, and thus works only with Latin-1 (ISO8859-1) characters. Although this problem has been fixed in Java 1.1, `PrintStream` has been superseded in Java 1.1 with `PrintWriter`. The constructors of this class have been deprecated, but the class itself has not, because it is still used by the `System.out` and `System.err` standard output streams.

`PrintStream` and its `PrintWriter` replacement output textual representations of Java data types. Use `DataOutputStream` to output binary representations of data.

    public class PrintStream extends FilterOutputStream {
        // Public Constructors
            #   public PrintStream(OutputStream out);
            #   public PrintStream(OutputStream out, boolean autoFlush);
        // Public Instance Methods
                public boolean checkError();
                public void close();  // Overrides FilterOutputStream
                public void flush();  // Overrides FilterOutputStream
                public void print(boolean b);
                public void print(char c);
                public void print(int i);
                public void print(long l);
                public void print(float f);
                public void print(double d);
                public void print(char[] s);
                public void print(String s);
                public void print(Object obj);
                public void println();
                public void println(boolean x);
                public void println(char x);
                public void println(int x);
                public void println(long x);
                public void println(float x);
                public void println(double x);
                public void println(char[] x);
                public void println(String x);
                public void println(Object x);
                public void write(int b);  // Overrides FilterOutputStream
                public void write(byte[] buf, int off, int len);  // Overrides FilterOutputStream
        // Protected Instance Methods
            1.1  protected void setError();
    }

### Hierarchy:

Object->OutputStream->FilterOutputStream->PrintStream

### Passed To:

Component.list(), Container.list(), Properties.list(), System.setErr(), System.setOut(), Throwable.printStackTrace()

### Type Of:

System.err, System.out

java.io.PipedWriter (JDK 1.1) |  | java.io.PrintWriter (JDK 1.1)