Unfortunately for the top answer, Scala-IO is dead. If you don't mind using a third-party dependency, consider using my OS-Lib library. This makes working with files, paths and the filesystem very easy:
// Make sure working directory exists and is empty
val wd = os.pwd/"out"/"splash"
os.remove.all(wd)
os.makeDir.all(wd)
// Read/write files
os.write(wd/"file.txt", "hello")
os.read(wd/"file.txt") ==> "hello"
// Perform filesystem operations
os.copy(wd/"file.txt", wd/"copied.txt")
os.list(wd) ==> Seq(wd/"copied.txt", wd/"file.txt")
It has one-liners for writing to files, appending to files, overwriting files, and many other useful/common operations
This is one of the features missing from standard Scala that I have found so useful that I add it to my personal library. (You probably should have a personal library, too.) The code goes like so:
def printToFile(f: java.io.File)(op: java.io.PrintWriter => Unit) {
val p = new java.io.PrintWriter(f)
try { op(p) } finally { p.close() }
}
and it's used like this:
import java.io._
val data = Array("Five","strings","in","a","file!")
printToFile(new File("example.txt")) { p =>
data.foreach(p.println)
}
Here is a concise one-liner using the Scala compiler library:
scala.tools.nsc.io.File("filename").writeAll("hello world")
Alternatively, if you want to use the Java libraries you can do this hack:
Some(new PrintWriter("filename")).foreach{p => p.write("hello world"); p.close}
Either
for error handlingdef write(destinationFile: Path, fileContent: String): Either[Exception, Path] =
write(destinationFile, fileContent.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8))
def write(destinationFile: Path, fileContent: Array[Byte]): Either[Exception, Path] =
try {
Files.createDirectories(destinationFile.getParent)
// Return the path to the destinationFile if the write is successful
Right(Files.write(destinationFile, fileContent))
} catch {
case exception: Exception => Left(exception)
}
val filePath = Paths.get("./testDir/file.txt")
write(filePath , "A test") match {
case Right(pathToWrittenFile) => println(s"Successfully wrote to $pathToWrittenFile")
case Left(exception) => println(s"Could not write to $filePath. Exception: $exception")
}
A micro library I wrote: https://github.com/pathikrit/better-files
file.appendLine("Hello", "World")
or
file << "Hello" << "\n" << "World"
Starting Scala 2.13
, the standard library provides a dedicated resource management utility: Using
.
It can be used in this case with resources such as PrintWriter
or BufferedWriter
which extends AutoCloseable
in order to write to a file and, no matter what, close the resource afterwards:
For instance, with java.io
api:
import scala.util.Using, java.io.{PrintWriter, File}
// val lines = List("hello", "world")
Using(new PrintWriter(new File("file.txt"))) {
writer => lines.foreach(writer.println)
}
Or with java.nio
api:
import scala.util.Using, java.nio.file.{Files, Paths}, java.nio.charset.Charset
// val lines = List("hello", "world")
Using(Files.newBufferedWriter(Paths.get("file.txt"), Charset.forName("UTF-8"))) {
writer => lines.foreach(line => writer.write(line + "\n"))
}
One liners for saving/reading to/from String
, using java.nio
.
import java.nio.file.{Paths, Files, StandardOpenOption}
import java.nio.charset.{StandardCharsets}
import scala.collection.JavaConverters._
def write(filePath:String, contents:String) = {
Files.write(Paths.get(filePath), contents.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8), StandardOpenOption.CREATE)
}
def read(filePath:String):String = {
Files.readAllLines(Paths.get(filePath), StandardCharsets.UTF_8).asScala.mkString
}
This isn't suitable for large files, but will do the job.
Some links:
java.nio.file.Files.write
java.lang.String.getBytes
scala.collection.JavaConverters
scala.collection.immutable.List.mkString
Similar to this answer, here is an example with fs2
(version 1.0.4):
import cats.effect._
import fs2._
import fs2.io
import java.nio.file._
import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext
import scala.language.higherKinds
import cats.syntax.functor._
object ScalaApp extends IOApp {
def write[T[_]](p: Path, s: String)
(implicit F: ConcurrentEffect[T], cs: ContextShift[T]): T[Unit] = {
Stream(s)
.covary[T]
.through(text.utf8Encode)
.through(
io.file.writeAll(
p,
scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext.global,
Seq(StandardOpenOption.CREATE)
)
)
.compile
.drain
}
def run(args: List[String]): IO[ExitCode] = {
implicit val executionContext: ExecutionContext =
scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext.Implicits.global
implicit val contextShift: ContextShift[IO] =
IO.contextShift(executionContext)
val outputFile: Path = Paths.get("output.txt")
write[IO](outputFile, "Hello world\n").as(ExitCode.Success)
}
}
If you are anyways having Akka Streams in your project, it provides a one-liner:
def writeToFile(p: Path, s: String)(implicit mat: Materializer): Unit = {
Source.single(ByteString(s)).runWith(FileIO.toPath(p))
}
Akka docs > Streaming File IO
2019 Update:
Summary - Java NIO (or NIO.2 for async) is still the most comprehensive file processing solution supported in Scala. The following code creates and writes some text to a new file:
import java.io.{BufferedOutputStream, OutputStream}
import java.nio.file.{Files, Paths}
val testFile1 = Paths.get("yourNewFile.txt")
val s1 = "text to insert in file".getBytes()
val out1: OutputStream = new BufferedOutputStream(
Files.newOutputStream(testFile1))
try {
out1.write(s1, 0, s1.length)
} catch {
case _ => println("Exception thrown during file writing")
} finally {
out1.close()
}
Path
object with your chosen file name OutputStream
write
functionSimilar to the answer by Rex Kerr, but more generic. First I use a helper function:
/**
* Used for reading/writing to database, files, etc.
* Code From the book "Beginning Scala"
* http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Scala-David-Pollak/dp/1430219890
*/
def using[A <: {def close(): Unit}, B](param: A)(f: A => B): B =
try { f(param) } finally { param.close() }
Then I use this as:
def writeToFile(fileName:String, data:String) =
using (new FileWriter(fileName)) {
fileWriter => fileWriter.write(data)
}
and
def appendToFile(fileName:String, textData:String) =
using (new FileWriter(fileName, true)){
fileWriter => using (new PrintWriter(fileWriter)) {
printWriter => printWriter.println(textData)
}
}
etc.
Here's an example of writing some lines to a file using scalaz-stream.
import scalaz._
import scalaz.stream._
def writeLinesToFile(lines: Seq[String], file: String): Task[Unit] =
Process(lines: _*) // Process that enumerates the lines
.flatMap(Process(_, "\n")) // Add a newline after each line
.pipe(text.utf8Encode) // Encode as UTF-8
.to(io.fileChunkW(fileName)) // Buffered write to the file
.runLog[Task, Unit] // Get this computation as a Task
.map(_ => ()) // Discard the result
writeLinesToFile(Seq("one", "two"), "file.txt").run
This line helps to write a file from an Array or String.
new PrintWriter(outputPath) { write(ArrayName.mkString("")); close }
To surpass samthebest and the contributors before him, I have improved the naming and conciseness:
def using[A <: {def close() : Unit}, B](resource: A)(f: A => B): B =
try f(resource) finally resource.close()
def writeStringToFile(file: File, data: String, appending: Boolean = false) =
using(new FileWriter(file, appending))(_.write(data))
A simple answer:
import java.io.File
import java.io.PrintWriter
def writeToFile(p: String, s: String): Unit = {
val pw = new PrintWriter(new File(p))
try pw.write(s) finally pw.close()
}
UPDATE on 2019/Sep/01:
finally
would swallow original Exception
thrown by try
if finally
code threw an Exception
After reviewing all of these answers on how to easily write a file in Scala, and some of them are quite nice, I had three issues:
scala.util.Try
close
method is performed on each dependent resource in reverse order - Note: closing dependent resources in reverse order ESPECIALLY IN THE EVENT OF A FAILURE is a rarely understood requirement of the java.lang.AutoCloseable
specification which tends to lead to very pernicious and difficult to find bugs and run time failuresBefore starting, my goal isn't conciseness. It's to facilitate easier understanding for Scala/FP beginners, typically those coming from Java. At the very end, I will pull all the bits together, and then increase the conciseness.
First, the using
method needs to be updated to use Try
(again, conciseness is not the goal here). It will be renamed to tryUsingAutoCloseable
:
def tryUsingAutoCloseable[A <: AutoCloseable, R]
(instantiateAutoCloseable: () => A) //parameter list 1
(transfer: A => scala.util.Try[R]) //parameter list 2
: scala.util.Try[R] =
Try(instantiateAutoCloseable())
.flatMap(
autoCloseable => {
var optionExceptionTry: Option[Exception] = None
try
transfer(autoCloseable)
catch {
case exceptionTry: Exception =>
optionExceptionTry = Some(exceptionTry)
throw exceptionTry
}
finally
try
autoCloseable.close()
catch {
case exceptionFinally: Exception =>
optionExceptionTry match {
case Some(exceptionTry) =>
exceptionTry.addSuppressed(exceptionFinally)
case None =>
throw exceptionFinally
}
}
}
)
The beginning of the above tryUsingAutoCloseable
method might be confusing because it appears to have two parameter lists instead of the customary single parameter list. This is called currying. And I won't go into detail how currying works or where it is occasionally useful. It turns out that for this particular problem space, it's the right tool for the job.
Next, we need to create method, tryPrintToFile
, which will create a (or overwrite an existing) File
and write a List[String]
. It uses a FileWriter
which is encapsulated by a BufferedWriter
which is in turn encapsulated by a PrintWriter
. And to elevate performance, a default buffer size much larger than the default for BufferedWriter
is defined, defaultBufferSize
, and assigned the value 65536.
Here's the code (and again, conciseness is not the goal here):
val defaultBufferSize: Int = 65536
def tryPrintToFile(
lines: List[String],
location: java.io.File,
bufferSize: Int = defaultBufferSize
): scala.util.Try[Unit] = {
tryUsingAutoCloseable(() => new java.io.FileWriter(location)) { //this open brace is the start of the second curried parameter to the tryUsingAutoCloseable method
fileWriter =>
tryUsingAutoCloseable(() => new java.io.BufferedWriter(fileWriter, bufferSize)) { //this open brace is the start of the second curried parameter to the tryUsingAutoCloseable method
bufferedWriter =>
tryUsingAutoCloseable(() => new java.io.PrintWriter(bufferedWriter)) { //this open brace is the start of the second curried parameter to the tryUsingAutoCloseable method
printWriter =>
scala.util.Try(
lines.foreach(line => printWriter.println(line))
)
}
}
}
}
The above tryPrintToFile
method is useful in that it takes a List[String]
as input and sends it to a File
. Let's now create a tryWriteToFile
method which takes a String
and writes it to a File
.
Here's the code (and I'll let you guess conciseness's priority here):
def tryWriteToFile(
content: String,
location: java.io.File,
bufferSize: Int = defaultBufferSize
): scala.util.Try[Unit] = {
tryUsingAutoCloseable(() => new java.io.FileWriter(location)) { //this open brace is the start of the second curried parameter to the tryUsingAutoCloseable method
fileWriter =>
tryUsingAutoCloseable(() => new java.io.BufferedWriter(fileWriter, bufferSize)) { //this open brace is the start of the second curried parameter to the tryUsingAutoCloseable method
bufferedWriter =>
Try(bufferedWriter.write(content))
}
}
}
Finally, it is useful to be able to fetch the contents of a File
as a String
. While scala.io.Source
provides a convenient method for easily obtaining the contents of a File
, the close
method must be used on the Source
to release the underlying JVM and file system handles. If this isn't done, then the resource isn't released until the JVM GC (Garbage Collector) gets around to releasing the Source
instance itself. And even then, there is only a weak JVM guarantee the finalize
method will be called by the GC to close
the resource. This means that it is the client's responsibility to explicitly call the close
method, just the same as it is the responsibility of a client to tall close
on an instance of java.lang.AutoCloseable
. For this, we need a second definition of the using method which handles scala.io.Source
.
Here's the code for this (still not being concise):
def tryUsingSource[S <: scala.io.Source, R]
(instantiateSource: () => S)
(transfer: S => scala.util.Try[R])
: scala.util.Try[R] =
Try(instantiateSource())
.flatMap(
source => {
var optionExceptionTry: Option[Exception] = None
try
transfer(source)
catch {
case exceptionTry: Exception =>
optionExceptionTry = Some(exceptionTry)
throw exceptionTry
}
finally
try
source.close()
catch {
case exceptionFinally: Exception =>
optionExceptionTry match {
case Some(exceptionTry) =>
exceptionTry.addSuppressed(exceptionFinally)
case None =>
throw exceptionFinally
}
}
}
)
And here is an example usage of it in a super simple line streaming file reader (currently using to read tab-delimited files from database output):
def tryProcessSource(
file: java.io.File
, parseLine: (String, Int) => List[String] = (line, index) => List(line)
, filterLine: (List[String], Int) => Boolean = (values, index) => true
, retainValues: (List[String], Int) => List[String] = (values, index) => values
, isFirstLineNotHeader: Boolean = false
): scala.util.Try[List[List[String]]] =
tryUsingSource(scala.io.Source.fromFile(file)) {
source =>
scala.util.Try(
( for {
(line, index) <-
source.getLines().buffered.zipWithIndex
values =
parseLine(line, index)
if (index == 0 && !isFirstLineNotHeader) || filterLine(values, index)
retainedValues =
retainValues(values, index)
} yield retainedValues
).toList //must explicitly use toList due to the source.close which will
//occur immediately following execution of this anonymous function
)
)
An updated version of the above function has been provided as an answer to a different but related StackOverflow question.
Now, bringing that all together with the imports extracted (making it much easier to paste into Scala Worksheet present in both Eclipse ScalaIDE and IntelliJ Scala plugin to make it easy to dump output to the desktop to be more easily examined with a text editor), this is what the code looks like (with increased conciseness):
import scala.io.Source
import scala.util.Try
import java.io.{BufferedWriter, FileWriter, File, PrintWriter}
val defaultBufferSize: Int = 65536
def tryUsingAutoCloseable[A <: AutoCloseable, R]
(instantiateAutoCloseable: () => A) //parameter list 1
(transfer: A => scala.util.Try[R]) //parameter list 2
: scala.util.Try[R] =
Try(instantiateAutoCloseable())
.flatMap(
autoCloseable => {
var optionExceptionTry: Option[Exception] = None
try
transfer(autoCloseable)
catch {
case exceptionTry: Exception =>
optionExceptionTry = Some(exceptionTry)
throw exceptionTry
}
finally
try
autoCloseable.close()
catch {
case exceptionFinally: Exception =>
optionExceptionTry match {
case Some(exceptionTry) =>
exceptionTry.addSuppressed(exceptionFinally)
case None =>
throw exceptionFinally
}
}
}
)
def tryUsingSource[S <: scala.io.Source, R]
(instantiateSource: () => S)
(transfer: S => scala.util.Try[R])
: scala.util.Try[R] =
Try(instantiateSource())
.flatMap(
source => {
var optionExceptionTry: Option[Exception] = None
try
transfer(source)
catch {
case exceptionTry: Exception =>
optionExceptionTry = Some(exceptionTry)
throw exceptionTry
}
finally
try
source.close()
catch {
case exceptionFinally: Exception =>
optionExceptionTry match {
case Some(exceptionTry) =>
exceptionTry.addSuppressed(exceptionFinally)
case None =>
throw exceptionFinally
}
}
}
)
def tryPrintToFile(
lines: List[String],
location: File,
bufferSize: Int = defaultBufferSize
): Try[Unit] =
tryUsingAutoCloseable(() => new FileWriter(location)) { fileWriter =>
tryUsingAutoCloseable(() => new BufferedWriter(fileWriter, bufferSize)) { bufferedWriter =>
tryUsingAutoCloseable(() => new PrintWriter(bufferedWriter)) { printWriter =>
Try(lines.foreach(line => printWriter.println(line)))
}
}
}
def tryWriteToFile(
content: String,
location: File,
bufferSize: Int = defaultBufferSize
): Try[Unit] =
tryUsingAutoCloseable(() => new FileWriter(location)) { fileWriter =>
tryUsingAutoCloseable(() => new BufferedWriter(fileWriter, bufferSize)) { bufferedWriter =>
Try(bufferedWriter.write(content))
}
}
def tryProcessSource(
file: File,
parseLine: (String, Int) => List[String] = (line, index) => List(line),
filterLine: (List[String], Int) => Boolean = (values, index) => true,
retainValues: (List[String], Int) => List[String] = (values, index) => values,
isFirstLineNotHeader: Boolean = false
): Try[List[List[String]]] =
tryUsingSource(() => Source.fromFile(file)) { source =>
Try(
( for {
(line, index) <- source.getLines().buffered.zipWithIndex
values = parseLine(line, index)
if (index == 0 && !isFirstLineNotHeader) || filterLine(values, index)
retainedValues = retainValues(values, index)
} yield retainedValues
).toList
)
}
As a Scala/FP newbie, I've burned many hours (in mostly head-scratching frustration) earning the above knowledge and solutions. I hope this helps other Scala/FP newbies get over this particular learning hump faster.
Giving another answer, because my edits of other answers where rejected.
This is the most concise and simple answer (similar to Garret Hall's)
File("filename").writeAll("hello world")
This is similar to Jus12, but without the verbosity and with correct code style
def using[A <: {def close(): Unit}, B](resource: A)(f: A => B): B =
try f(resource) finally resource.close()
def writeToFile(path: String, data: String): Unit =
using(new FileWriter(path))(_.write(data))
def appendToFile(path: String, data: String): Unit =
using(new PrintWriter(new FileWriter(path, true)))(_.println(data))
Note you do NOT need the curly braces for try finally
, nor lambdas, and note usage of placeholder syntax. Also note better naming.
Source: Stackoverflow.com