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<document>
 <properties>
  <title>User guide</title>
  <author email="dev@commons.apache.org">Commons Documentation Team</author>
 </properties>
  <body>

    <section name="User guide">
        <p>
            Commons-IO contains
            <a href="#Utility classes">utility classes</a>,
            <a href="#Endian classes">endian classes</a>,
            <a href="#Line iterator">line iterator</a>,
            <a href="#File filters">file filters</a>,
            <a href="#File comparators">file comparators</a> and
            <a href="#Streams">stream implementations</a>.
        </p>

        <p>
            For a more detailed descriptions, take a look at the
            <a href="api-release/index.html">javadocs</a>.
        </p>
    </section>

    <section name="Utility classes">
        <subsection name="IOUtils">
            <p>
                <a href="javadocs/api-release/index.html?org/apache/commons/io/IOUtils.html">IOUtils</a>
                contains utility methods dealing with reading, writing and copying.
                The methods work on InputStream, OutputStream, Reader and Writer.
            </p>
            <p>
                As an example, consider the task of reading bytes
                from a URL, and printing them. This would typically done like this:
            </p>

            <source>
 InputStream in = new URL( "http://commons.apache.org" ).openStream();
 try {
   InputStreamReader inR = new InputStreamReader( in );
   BufferedReader buf = new BufferedReader( inR );
   String line;
   while ( ( line = buf.readLine() ) != null ) {
     System.out.println( line );
   }
 } finally {
   in.close();
 }</source>

            <p>
                With the IOUtils class, that could be done with:
            </p>

            <source>
 InputStream in = new URL( "http://commons.apache.org" ).openStream();
 try {
   System.out.println( IOUtils.toString( in ) );
 } finally {
   IOUtils.closeQuietly(in);
 }</source>

            <p>
                In certain application domains, such IO operations are
                common, and this class can save a great deal of time. And you can
                rely on well-tested code.
            </p>
            <p>
                For utility code such as this, flexibility and speed are of primary importance.
                However you should also understand the limitations of this approach.
                Using the above technique to read a 1GB file would result in an
                attempt to create a 1GB String object!
            </p>

        </subsection>

        <subsection name="FileUtils">
            <p>
                The <a href="api-release/index.html?org/apache/commons/io/FileUtils.html">FileUtils</a>
                class contains utility methods for working with File objects.
                These include reading, writing, copying and comparing files.
            </p>
            <p>
                For example to read an entire file line by line you could use:
            </p>
            <source>
 File file = new File("/commons/io/project.properties");
 List lines = FileUtils.readLines(file, "UTF-8");</source>
        </subsection>

        <subsection name="FilenameUtils">
            <p>
                The <a href="api-release/index.html?org/apache/commons/io/FilenameUtils.html">FilenameUtils</a>
                class contains utility methods for working with filenames <i>without</i>
                using File objects. The class aims to be consistent
                between Unix and Windows, to aid transitions between these
                environments (such as moving from development to production).
            </p>
            <p>
                For example to normalize a filename removing double dot segments:
            </p>
            <source>
 String filename = "C:/commons/io/../lang/project.xml";
 String normalized = FilenameUtils.normalize(filename);
 // result is "C:/commons/lang/project.xml"</source>
        </subsection>

        <subsection name="FileSystemUtils">
            <p>
                The <a href="api-release/index.html?org/apache/commons/io/FileSystemUtils.html">FileSystemUtils</a>
                class contains
                utility methods for working with the file system
                to access functionality not supported by the JDK.
                Currently, the only method is to get the free space on a drive.
                Note that this uses the command line, not native code.
            </p>
            <p>
                For example to find the free space on a drive:
            </p>
            <source>
 long freeSpace = FileSystemUtils.freeSpace("C:/");</source>
        </subsection>

    </section>

    <section name="Endian classes">
        <p>
            Different computer architectures adopt different
            conventions for byte ordering. In so-called
            "Little Endian" architectures (eg Intel), the low-order
            byte is stored in memory at the lowest address, and
            subsequent bytes at higher addresses. For "Big Endian"
            architectures (eg Motorola), the situation is reversed.
        </p>

        <p>
        There are two classes in this package of relevance:
        </p>

        <ul>
           <li>
           The <a href="api-release/index.html?org/apache/commons/io/EndianUtils.html">EndianUtils</a>
           class contains static methods for swapping the Endian-ness
           of Java primitives and streams.
           </li>

           <li>
           The <a href="api-release/index.html?org/apache/commons/io/input/SwappedDataInputStream.html">SwappedDataInputStream</a>
           class is an implementation of the <code>DataInput</code> interface. With
           this, one can read data from files of non-native Endian-ness.
           </li>
        </ul>

        <p>
            For more information, see
            <a
                href="http://www.cs.umass.edu/~verts/cs32/endian.html">http://www.cs.umass.edu/~verts/cs32/endian.html</a>
         </p>

    </section>

    <section name="Line iterator">
        <p>
            The <code>org.apache.commons.io.LineIterator</code> class
            provides a flexible way for working with a line-based file.
            An instance can be created directly, or via factory methods on
            <code>FileUtils</code> or <code>IOUtils</code>.
            The recommended usage pattern is:
        </p>
        <source>
 LineIterator it = FileUtils.lineIterator(file, "UTF-8");
 try {
   while (it.hasNext()) {
     String line = it.nextLine();
     /// do something with line
   }
 } finally {
   LineIterator.closeQuietly(iterator);
 }</source>
    </section>

    <section name="File filters">
        <p>
            The <code>org.apache.commons.io.filefilter</code>
            package defines an interface
            (<a href="api-release/index.html?org/apache/commons/io/filefilter/IOFileFilter.html">IOFileFilter</a>)
            that combines both <code>java.io.FileFilter</code> and
            <code>java.io.FilenameFilter</code>. Besides
            that the package offers a series of ready-to-use
            implementations of the <code>IOFileFilter</code>
            interface including
            implementation that allow you to combine other such filters.

            These filters can be used to list files or in FileDialog, for example.
        </p>
        <p>
            See the
            <a href="api-release/index.html?org/apache/commons/io/filefilter/package-summary.html">filefilter</a>
            package javadoc for more details.
        </p>
    </section>

    <section name="File comparators">
        <p>
            The <code>org.apache.commons.io.comparator</code>
            package provides a number of <code>java.util.Comparator</code>
            implementations for <code>java.io.File</code>.

            These comparators can be used to sort lists and arrays of files, for example.
        </p>
        <p>
            See the
            <a href="api-release/index.html?org/apache/commons/io/comparator/package-summary.html">comparator</a>
            package javadoc for more details.
        </p>
    </section>

    <section name="Streams">
        <p>
            The <code>org.apache.commons.io.input</code> and
            <code>org.apache.commons.io.output</code> packages
            contain various useful implementations of streams.
            These include:
            <ul>
            <li>Null output stream - that silently absorbs all data sent to it</li>
            <li>Tee output stream - that sends output data to two streams instead of one</li>
            <li>Byte array output stream - that is a faster version of the JDK class</li>
            <li>Counting streams - that count the number of bytes passed</li>
            <li>Proxy streams - that delegate to the correct method in the proxy</li>
            <li>Lockable writer - that provides synchronization of writes using a lock file</li>
            </ul>
        </p>
        <p>
            See the
            <a href="api-release/index.html?org/apache/commons/io/input/package-summary.html">input</a> or
            <a href="api-release/index.html?org/apache/commons/io/output/package-summary.html">output</a>
            package javadoc for more details.
        </p>
    </section>

  </body>

</document>
