Android: how to write a file to internal storage

delca85 picture delca85 · Jun 16, 2017 · Viewed 108.3k times · Source

I am developing a simple android application and I need to write a text file in internal storage device. I know there are a lot of questions (and answers) about this matter but I really cannot understand what I am doing in the wrong way.

This is the piece of code I use in my activity in order to write the file:

public void writeAFile(){
    String fileName = "myFile.txt";
    String textToWrite = "This is some text!";
    FileOutputStream outputStream;

   try {
      outputStream = openFileOutput(fileName , Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
      outputStream.write(textToWrite.getBytes());
      outputStream.close();
   } catch (Exception e) {
     e.printStackTrace();
   }
}

I really cannot understand which mistake I am doing. In addition, I have tried this project on my emulator in Android Studio and my phone in order to understand where I am doing something wrong but even with that project no file is written neither on the phone or on the emulator.

EDIT: I know that no file is written to my internal storage because I try to read the content of the file, after I have written to it, with this code:

public void ReadBtn(View v) {
    //reading text from file
    try {
        FileInputStream fileIn=openFileInput("myFile.txt");
        InputStreamReader InputRead= new InputStreamReader(fileIn);

        char[] inputBuffer= new char[READ_BLOCK_SIZE];
        String s="";
        int charRead;

        while ((charRead=InputRead.read(inputBuffer))>0) {
            String readstring=String.copyValueOf(inputBuffer,0,charRead);
            s +=readstring;
        }
        InputRead.close();
        textmsg.setText(s);
    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

Nothing is shown at all.

Answer

Sandeep dhiman picture Sandeep dhiman · Jun 16, 2017

Use the below code to write a file to internal storage:

public void writeFileOnInternalStorage(Context mcoContext, String sFileName, String sBody){      
    File dir = new File(mcoContext.getFilesDir(), "mydir");
    if(!dir.exists()){
        dir.mkdir();
    }

    try {
        File gpxfile = new File(dir, sFileName);
        FileWriter writer = new FileWriter(gpxfile);
        writer.append(sBody);
        writer.flush();
        writer.close();
    } catch (Exception e){
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

Starting in API 19, you must ask for permission to write to storage.

You can add read and write permissions by adding the following code to AndroidManifest.xml:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

You can prompt the user for read/write permissions using:

requestPermissions(new String[]{WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE,READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE}, 1);

and then you can handle the result of the permission request in onRequestPermissionsResult() inside activity called from it.