Thread: Simple game that requires me to load game settings from a file

Hello!

You're going to have to create files using Java.io.File, Java.io.PrintWriter, and similar classes.

To initialize a PrintWriter, you use the code

PrintWriter file = new PrintWriter(String fileLocation);

Note that "file" is whatever you want the PrintWriter to be named in code (you could name it applesauce if you wanted to ), and that "String fileLocation" should actually be a filepath, for example: "My Documents/codefiles/basement.txt" could be used for your file, so you know where it is and what it's called.

After you create the PrintWriter, you can tell it to add text to the file simply by code like this:

file.println(String whatToAdd); //Automatically inserts a new line
file.print(String whatToAdd);   //Doesn't add a new line

Note that "String whatToAdd" should actually be what you want the PrintWriter to add to the file, such as "basement,box". "file" is still what I named the PrintWriter above (it could be, once again, applesauce if I wanted it to).

Would you be surprised to find out that for all the IO classes that write to files, there is a corresponding class to read from files?

Oh. I apologize.

The way I'm doing this (I am encountering the same issue with a program of mine right now) is using a FileInputStream.

To create one, use the code

FileInputStream fs = new FileInputStream(String fileLocation);

and then to be safe, I wrap the FileInputStream in a DataInputStream, which is wrapped in a InputStreamReader, which is wrapped in a BufferedReader (this will allow you to read the document line by line).

For the example I read to learn this, see here.

You'll probably also need to store the information for the box in the file, so the program knows what information the box stores, unless this is unchanging (in which case you probably wouldn't need an external file...)

Hopefully this helps.

That's a little over kill. It also depends on the data you are reading. From the API:

"FileInputStream is meant for reading streams of raw bytes such as image data. For reading streams of characters, consider using FileReader"