24.64 java.io.StringWriter (JDK 1.1)

This class is a character output stream that uses an internal StringBuffer object as the destination of the characters written to the stream. When you create a StringWriter, you may optionally specify an initial size for the StringBuffer, but you do not specify the StringBuffer itself--it is managed internally by the StringWriter, and grows as necessary to accommodate the characters written to it.

StringWriter defines the standard write(), flush(), and close() methods that all Writer subclasses do, and also defines two methods to obtain the characters that have been written into the stream's internal buffer. toString() returns the contents of the internal buffer as a String, and getBuffer() returns the buffer itself. Note that getBuffer() returns a reference to the actual internal buffer, not a copy of it, so any changes you make to the buffer are reflected in subsequent calls to toString().

StringWriter is quite similar to CharArrayWriter, but does not have a byte stream analog.

public class StringWriter extends Writer {
    // Public Constructor
            public StringWriter();
    // Protected Constructor
            protected StringWriter(int initialSize);
    // Public Instance Methods
            public void close();  // Defines Writer
            public void flush();  // Defines Writer
            public StringBuffer getBuffer();
            public String toString();  // Overrides Object
            public void write(int c);  // Overrides Writer
            public void write(char[] cbuf, int off, int len);  // Defines Writer
            public void write(String str);  // Overrides Writer
            public void write(String str, int off, int len);  // Overrides Writer
}

Hierarchy:

Object->Writer->StringWriter