Scala Cookbook

12.2. Writing Text Files

Problem

You want to write plain text to a file, such as a simple configuration file, text data file, or other plain-text document.

Solution

Scala doesn’t offer any special file writing capability, so fall back and use the Java PrintWriter or FileWriter approaches:

// PrintWriter
import java.io._
val pw = new PrintWriter(new File("hello.txt" ))
pw.write("Hello, world")
pw.close

// FileWriter
val file = new File(canonicalFilename)
val bw = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(file))
bw.write(text)
bw.close()

Discussion

Although I normally use a FileWriter to write plain text to a file, a good post at coderanch.com describes some of the differences between PrintWriter and FileWriter. For instance, while both classes extend from Writer, and both can be used for writing plain text to files, FileWriter throws IOExceptions, whereas PrintWriter does not throw exceptions, and instead sets Boolean flags that can be checked. There are a few other differences between the classes; check their Javadoc for more information.

See Also

• My Java file utilities and my Scala file utilities

• The Java FileWriter class

• The Java PrintWriter class

• The coderanch.com PrintWriter versus FileWriter page