Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

All of Java's Input/Output (I/O) facilities are based on streams, which provide simple ways to read and write data of different types. Java provides many different kinds of streams, each with its own application. The universe of streams is divided into four large categories: input streams and output streams, for reading and writing binary data; and readers and writers, for reading and writing textual (character) data. You're almost certainly familiar with the basic kinds of streams--but did you know that there's a CipherInputStream for reading encrypted data? And a ZipOutputStream for automatically compressing data? Do you know how to use buffered streams effectively to make your I/O operations more efficient? Java I/O tells you all you ever need to know about streams--and probably more.A discussion of I/O wouldn't be complete without treatment of character sets and formatting. Java supports the UNICODE standard, which provides definitions for the character sets of most written languages. Consequently, Java is the first programming language that lets you do I/O in virtually any language. Java also provides a sophisticated model for formatting textual and numeric data. Java I/O shows you how to control number formatting, use characters aside from the standard (but outdated) ASCII character set, and get a head start on writing truly multilingual software. Java I/O includes:

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface
• I Basic I/O
• 1 Introducing I/O
• What Is a Stream?
• Numeric Data Character
• Data Readers and Writers
• The Ubiquitous IOException
• The Console: System.out, System.in, and System.err
• Security Checks on I/O
• 2 Output Streams
• The OutputStream Class
• Writing Bytes to Output Streams
• Writing Arrays of Bytes Flushing and Closing Output Streams
• Subclassing OutputStream
• A Graphical User Interface for Output Streams
• 3 Input Streams
• The InputStream Class
• The read( ) Method
• Reading Chunks of Data from a Stream
• Counting the Available Bytes
• Skipping Bytes
• Closing Input Streams
• Marking and Resetting Subclassing
• InputStream
• An Efficient Stream Copier
• II Data Sources
• 4 File Streams
• Reading Files
• Writing Files
• File Viewer Part 1
• 5 Network Streams URLs
• URL Connections Sockets
• Server Sockets
• URLViewer
• III Filter Streams
• 6 Filter Streams
• The Filter Stream Classes
• The Filter Stream Subclasses
• Buffered Streams
• Pushback
• InputStream
• Print Streams
• Multitarget
• Output Streams
• File Viewer Part 2
• 7 Data Streams
• The Data Stream
• Classes Reading and Writing
• Integers Reading and Writing
• Floating-Point Numbers
• Reading and Writing
• Booleans
• Reading Byte Arrays
• Reading and Writing Text
• Miscellaneous Methods Reading and Writing
• Little-Endian Numbers
• Thread Safety
• File Viewer Part 3
• 8 Streams in Memory Sequence
• Input Streams
• Byte Array Streams
• Communicating Between Threads with Piped Streams
• 9 Compressing Streams
• Inflaters and Deflaters
• Compressing and Decompressing Streams
• Working with Zip Files
• Checksums JAR Files
• File Viewer Part 4
• 10 Cryptographic Streams
• Hash Function Basics
• The Message
• Digest Class
• Digest Streams
• Encryption Basics
• The Cipher Class
• Cipher Streams
• File Viewer Part 5
• IV Advanced and Miscellaneous Topics
• 11 Object Serialization
• Reading and Writing Objects
• Object Streams
• How Object Serialization
• Works Performance
• The Serializable Interface
• The Object
• Input and Object
• Output Interfaces
• Versioning Customizing the Serialization
• Format Resolving
• Classes Resolving
• Objects Validation
• Sealed Objects
• 12 Working with Files
• Understanding Files
• Directories and Paths
• The File Class Filename
• Filters File
• Filters File Descriptors
• Random-Access Files
• General Techniques for Cross-Platform
• File Access Code
• 13 File Dialogs and Choosers File Dialogs JFile
• Chooser File Viewer Part 6
• 14 Multilingual Character Sets and Unicode
• Unicode Displaying
• Unicode Text
• Unicode Escapes UTF-8
• The char Data Type
• Other Encodings
• Converting Between Byte Arrays and Strings
• 15 Readers and Writers
• The java.io.Writer Class
• The OutputStreamWriter Class
• The java.io.Reader Class
• The InputStreamReader Class
• Character Array
• Readers and Writers
• String Readers and Writers
• Reading and Writing Files
• Buffered Readers and Writers
• Print Writers
• Piped Readers and Writers
• Filtered Readers and Writers
• File Viewer Finis
• 16 Formatted I/O with java.text
• The Old Way Choosing a Locale Number Formats
• Specifying Width with Field
• Position Parsing Input Decimal Formats
• An Exponential Number Format
• 17 The Java Communications API
• The Architecture of the Java Communications
• API Identifying Ports Communicating with a Device on a Port
• Serial Ports Parallel Ports
• V Appendixes
• A Additional Resources
• B Character Sets