Is it ok to write in file with Formatter?

Question

Is it a good practice to write in file with Formatter? For example:

Formatter g = null;
   try {
       g = new Formatter("data.out");
   } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
       e.printStackTrace();
    }

int x = 3;
g.format("abc" + Integer.toString(x));
g.close();

I have been writing with Formatter all semester long, to find out that one of the common ways to write in files is with PrintWriter. Is there any possibility that some programs of my homework won't write what they were meant to write? Thanks!

Answer 1

I wouldn't say there's anything "wrong" with it per se. You simply gain c-style formatting options for your output, though you do lose some compatibility, since Formatter does not extend Writer.

Based on documentation, I wouldn't expect your output to be wrong for your homework. If you really wanted to be sure, though, Formatter does happen to have a constructor that accepts Appandable objects, and PrintWriter, by virtue of extending Writer, happens to implement that interface. This means you could construct a Formatter such that it uses a PrintWriter to do its dirty work, instead of the default BufferedWriter it would normally internally use to output to a file. However, this would be overkill, as while Print and BufferedWriter have internal differences with exception handling, exposed methods, and performance, the printed output would ultimately be identical since Formatter interacts with both the same way.