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javaioprintwriterprintstream

System.out.println vs PrintWriter

Is there a difference in using these two? When would you use one over the other?

System.out.println(result);

versus

PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(System.out);
out.println(result);
out.flush();
Solution

  • The main difference is that System.out is a PrintStream and the other one is a PrintWriter. Essentially, PrintStream should be used to write a stream of bytes, while PrintWriter should be used to write a stream of characters (and thus it deals with character encodings and such).

    For most use cases, there is no difference.