Read in a file and convert into Binary

Question

Hi there, i am new to java so plz give me a hand on this problem.
I am suppose to read in a file(with whole bunch of different records), and what i need to do is convert the file into binary.....how do i do that??
the original Q asked:
Create a java program that will read the products file and write the products data into a java binary file. Adhere to good data typing conventions. That means, if a column in the input file is of type integer, then the data in that column should also be written to the output file in integer format. Same thing for String...
Here is the code i have so far
import java.io.*;
class FileIO {
/* Main method */
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
     FileReader file1 = new FileReader("test.txt");
     BufferedReader fileInput = new BufferedReader(file1);
     FileWriter file2 = new FileWriter("test1.txt");
     PrintWriter fileOutput = new PrintWriter(file2);
     String text;
     text = fileInput.readLine();
     //toBinaryString(text); <---i think there is something to do with the tobinary string but i am not sure
          System.out.println(text);
          fileOutput.println(text);
     // Close file
     fileInput.close();
     fileOutput.close();
E-mail me directly if it's possible, thanks a lot~!!!!!

Answer 1

Maybe not the answer the teacher is looking for, but I'd be highly tempted to point out that the file, regardless of what's in it, is already binary. Even if it's a text file, what do you think the characters are defined as? Bytes.