Thread: How can I add empty string ("") to the end of textfile

I am writing to a RandomAccessFile. When I try to do raf.writeBytes("") the textfile ignores this empty string and just removes it from the file. Is there a way so that the textfile will save this empty character?

It's kind of like trying to find your invisibility cloak after you've forgotten where you put it. How can you save something that doesn't exist to a file? What are you trying to do? Besides the obvious, because that doesn't seem possible to me.

This is a bit difficult to explain but I am writing a program that allows the user to write to a text file using randomaccessfile. The user enters name, age, and address, and each of these items is 20 bytes, so the record length is 60 bytes. When the user wants to search for a record, they input a record number, the program goes to seek(n*60), and those 60 bytes are stored into a byte array, and is then outputted. This works fine except for when the user wants the last record. I can't find a way to add extra space after the name,age,address to fill in the 60 bytes. I am getting the error java.io.EOFException: null due to this.

Good explanation. You don't want to "pad" the records with nothing. That's not padding. Pick a padding character that you'd never expect to find in the name, age, and address fields. You could check an ASCII table and pick some bizarre character, or pick something simpler like '@' or '#' or whatever you'd like. Then you'll know to remove or ignore those characters that have been added at the end(s) of fields. I don't know if there's a standard padding character. You might search on that and see if there are any recommendations.

Oh wow thats a good idea, I'll try that out thanks.