Java IO.pdf - Nguyen Dang Binh

Chapter 17
Java I/O
lining up the decimal points in a table of prices, and nontraditional tasks, like
formatting numbers in Egyptian Arabic.
Chapter 17 introduces the Java Communications API, a standard extension available
for Java 1.1 and later that allows Java applications and trusted applets to send and
receive data to and from the serial and parallel ports of the host computer. The Java
Communications API allows your programs to communicate with essentially any
device connected to a serial or parallel port, like a printer, a scanner, a modem, a tape
backup unit, and so on.
Chapter 1 through Chapter 3 provide the basic background you'll need to do any sort of work
with I/O in Java. After that, you should feel free to jump around as your interests take you.
There are, however, some interdependencies between specific chapters. Figure P.1 should
allow you to map out possible paths through the book.
Figure P.1. Chapter prerequisites
A few examples in later chapters depend on material from earlier chapters—for instance,
many examples use the FileInputStream class discussed in Chapter 4—but they should not
be difficult to understand in the large.
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