How to read a text file into a String?

Question

and also write a text file from a String. I searched the forum and found this folowing code:
// Read and append... by Example
try{
String fileName = "text.txt"; // Filename
// Make the inputfile object
FileInputStream fi = new FileInputStream(fileName);
byte inData[] = new byte[fi.available()];
fi.read(inData); // Read
fi.close(); // Close
String text = new String(inData); // Make a textstring...
// Now, do whatever you want with the data... and append...
String textToAppend = "kjkjhjhKJ";
byte outData[] = textToAppend.getBytes();
// Make the outputfile (whith the 'append' boolean set to true
FileOutputStream fo = new FileOutputStream(fileName,true);
fo.write(outData);
fo.close();
}catch(Exception oops){}but it returns funny characters to the String from the text file and vice versa in writting the text file. Can anybody please help? Thank you.
kindo

Answer 1

See here for info on encodings:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/docs/guide/intl/encoding.doc.html
Some common US encodings and common uses:
ASCII (DOS)
Cp1252 (Windows 9x)
UTF8 (XML)
import java.io.*;
public class TextFile extends File
private static String DEFAULT_ENCODING = "ASCII";
private File file;
private String encoding;
public TextFile(File file, String encoding)
     super(file.getPath());
     this.file = file;
     this.encoding = encoding;
public TextFile(File file)
     this(file, DEFAULT_ENCODING);
public String load() throws Exception
     FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(file);
     byte[] barr = new byte[fis.available()];
     fis.read(barr);
     fis.close();
     return new String(barr, encoding);
public void save(String str) throws Exception
     FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(file);
     fos.write(str.getBytes(encoding));
     fos.close();
}