java reader vs. stream

Question

I was reading about Java I/O and found some interesting areas like streams, readers etc.

 InputStream input = new FileInputStream("input-file.txt");
 int data = input.read();
 while(data != -1){
   data = input.read();
 }

I can do the same thing by using Readers as follows:

Reader reader = new FileReader("input-file.txt");
 int data = reader.read();
 while(data != -1){
     char dataChar = (char) data;
     data = reader.read();
 }

As I know, Streams are used to retrieve input from continuously flowing data.

Now I am confused with the difference between Streams & readers; and if we wraps the stream with a buffered reader - how it break lines, since stream is a continuously flowing thing.

I found some reference sites like this site. But I can't understand the difference.

Please can someone please help me to understand?

Answer 1

Readers are to read text data with particular character encoding (UTF-8, ISO etc..)

while on the other hand, streams are binary data.

They work same but there parent classes are different.

in a nutshell, if you have to read binary data and save it somewhere, use stream.

If you have to read text in a particular encoding and then play with it, then use readers.

Hope this answers.