Reading/Writing to files Java

Question

I am trying to read and write entries from/to a file and am having some issues. The file is being created, but it is not being written to and as a result not being read. I have it set to when the button is clicked, it should write and read from a file and display the contents into a textarea. Here is my code:

public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event) 
{
    if (event.getSource() == this.saveToFile) {
        // save to file
       try {
           if (Integer.parseInt(this.age.getText()) > 0 && Integer.parseInt(this.age.getText()) <= 120) {
               this.openFile();
               this.writeToFile();
           } else {
               JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(rootPane, "Age must be greater than zero and no more than 120");
           }
       } catch (IOException e) {
           // ignore
       }
    } else if (event.getSource() == this.exitProgram) {
        System.exit(0);
    } else if (event.getSource() == this.readFromFile) {
        // read from file
        this.openFile();
        this.readFile();
    }
}

private void openFile()
{
    try {
        this.scan = new Scanner(new File("contacts.txt"));
    } catch (Exception e) {
        // ignore
    }
}

private void writeToFile() throws IOException
{
     BufferedWriter outfile = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter("contacts.txt"));

     outfile.write("Name: ");
     outfile.write(this.name.getText());

     outfile.write("Age: ");
     outfile.write(this.age.getText());

     outfile.write("Email: ");
     outfile.write(this.email.getText());

     outfile.write("Cell Phone: ");
     outfile.write(this.cell.getText());

     outfile.write("\n\n");
}

private void readFile()
{
    while (this.scan.hasNext()) {
        this.textArea.append(this.scan.next() + "\t");
    }
}

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Try to add at the end of writeToFile()

outfile.flush();
outfile.close();

flush will tell the os to write the file to the media and close will free resources taken by the file.

Answer 2

The BufferedReader does buffer input. At the end of you writeToFile() - method, you should use outfile.flush(); to write all pending data from the buffer to the file. Also, close your resources, when you are done: outfile.close(); . You may want to take a look at the try-with-resources