Java – Append Data to a File

1. Introduction

In this quick tutorial, we’ll see how we use Java to append data to the content of a file – in a few simple ways.

Let’s start with how we can do this using core Java’s FileWriter.

2. Using FileWriter

Here’s a simple test – reading an existing file, appending some text, and then making sure that got appended correctly:

@Test
public void whenAppendToFileUsingFileWriter_thenCorrect()
  throws IOException {
 
    FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(fileName, true);
    BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(fw);
    bw.write("Spain");
    bw.newLine();
    bw.close();
    
    assertThat(getStringFromInputStream(
      new FileInputStream(fileName)))
      .isEqualTo("UK\r\n" + "US\r\n" + "Germany\r\n" + "Spain\r\n");
}

Note that FileWriter’s constructor accepts a boolean marking if we want to append data to an existing file.

If we set it to false, then the existing content will be replaced.

3. Using FileOutputStream

Next – let’s see how we can do the same operation – using FileOutputStream:

@Test
public void whenAppendToFileUsingFileOutputStream_thenCorrect()
 throws Exception {
 
    FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(fileName, true);
    fos.write("Spain\r\n".getBytes());
    fos.close();
    
    assertThat(StreamUtils.getStringFromInputStream(
      new FileInputStream(fileName)))
      .isEqualTo("UK\r\n" + "US\r\n" + "Germany\r\n" + "Spain\r\n");
}

Similarly, the FileOutputStream constructor accepts a boolean that should be set to true to mark that we want to append data to an existing file.

4. Using java.nio.file

Next – we can also append content to files using functionality in java.nio.file – which was introduced in JDK 7:

@Test
public void whenAppendToFileUsingFiles_thenCorrect() 
 throws IOException {
 
    String contentToAppend = "Spain\r\n";
    Files.write(
      Paths.get(fileName), 
      contentToAppend.getBytes(), 
      StandardOpenOption.APPEND);
    
    assertThat(StreamUtils.getStringFromInputStream(
      new FileInputStream(fileName)))
      .isEqualTo("UK\r\n" + "US\r\n" + "Germany\r\n" + "Spain\r\n");
}

5. Using Guava

To start using Guava, we need to add its dependency to our pom.xml:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.google.guava</groupId>
    <artifactId>guava</artifactId>
    <version>23.0</version>
</dependency>

Now, let’s see how we can start using Guava to append content to an existing file:

@Test
public void whenAppendToFileUsingFileWriter_thenCorrect()
 throws IOException {
 
    File file = new File(fileName);
    CharSink chs = Files.asCharSink(
      file, Charsets.UTF_8, FileWriteMode.APPEND);
    chs.write("Spain\r\n");
	
    assertThat(StreamUtils.getStringFromInputStream(
      new FileInputStream(fileName)))
      .isEqualTo("UK\r\n" + "US\r\n" + "Germany\r\n" + "Spain\r\n");
}

6. Using Apache Commons IO FileUtils

Finally – let’s see how we can append content to an existing file using Apache Commons IO FileUtils.

First, let’s add the Apache Commons IO dependency to our pom.xml:

<dependency>
    <groupId>commons-io</groupId>
    <artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
    <version>2.6</version>
</dependency>

Now, let’s see a quick example that demonstrates appending content to an existing file using FileUtils:

@Test
public void whenAppendToFileUsingFiles_thenCorrect()
 throws IOException {
    File file = new File(fileName);
    FileUtils.writeStringToFile(
      file, "Spain\r\n", StandardCharsets.UTF_8, true);
    
    assertThat(StreamUtils.getStringFromInputStream(
      new FileInputStream(fileName)))
      .isEqualTo("UK\r\n" + "US\r\n" + "Germany\r\n" + "Spain\r\n");
}

7. Conclusion

In this article, we’ve seen how we can append content in multiple ways.

The full implementation of this tutorial can be found over on GitHub.