How to overwrite a file in Java

Can we overwrite a file using Java? Yes! In this blog, you will learn how to overwrite a file in Java using java.io.FileWriter class.

Class FileWriter

This class belongs to java.io package this class is used to write a character into the file. We can create or overwrite a file using java.io.FileWriter class.

Declaration

public class FileWriter extends OutputStreamWriter

Constructors

• FileWriter(File file)
• FileWriter(File file, boolean append)
• FileWriter(FileDescriptor fd)
• FileWriter(String fileName)
• FileWriter(String fileName, boolean append)

Code with explanation for overwriting a file in Java

Here we overwrite a .txt file using java.io.FileWriter class.

import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Scanner;

public class OverwriteFile {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Scanner scObj = new Scanner(System.in);
        System.out.println("Input the contents of the file."
                + "\n===================================");
        
        String content = scObj.nextLine();
        scObj.close();
        try {
            FileWriter writerObj = new FileWriter("F:\\WorkFile.txt", false);
            writerObj.write(content);
            writerObj.close();

            System.out.println("================================\n"
                    + "File successfully overwritten.");
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

    }
}

Output
Input the contents of the file.
===================================
hello, you are viewing a java blog on codespeedy website
================================
File successfully overwritten.

Also, you can see Workfile.txt

Explanation

• Line 8 – 12: In this code, we created an object named scObj of Scanner class to read input and store in the String content variable using scObj.nextLine() method.
• Line 14 – 16: Here in try block we created an object named writerObj of FileWriter class and also we pass the File Location value in a string and a false Boolean value in the FileWriter parameter constructor. Now using writerObj.write(content) we write the string data in the WorkFile.txt.
• The reason why we pass the false boolean value? If you want to overwrite a file, you must pass the false boolean value and to append in file, you must pass the true boolean value in the parameter of FileWriter() class.
• Line 21 – 23: Here we catch the exception which may be thrown by FileWriter class.

Also read: Reading and writing a file in java using FileWriter and FileReader

That’s enough for a how to overwrite a file in Java.

Thank you