io - Java I/O: How to append to an already existing text file

Question

Hi I am having no problem writing to or appending to a file, the only problem is that as soon as I quit the program and then run it again, it creates a new file overwriting my original file. This is a problem, as I am using the text file to keep a running tally.

Is there a way to get an already created text file as an object and then append to it?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Usually, better than FileWriter (already suggested) is to use FileOutputStream, which also (like FileWriter ) has an append parameter in one of its constructors, and which (unlike FileWriter), does not silently assume the default charset encoding (slightly bad practice IMO).

From the FileWriter doc:

Convenience class for writing character files. The constructors of this class assume that the default character encoding and the default byte-buffer size are acceptable. To specify these values yourself, construct an OutputStreamWriter on a FileOutputStream.