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System.out.println vs PrintWriter

Is there any difference in using these two? When will you use one over the other?

System.out.println(result);

OR

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

The difference is that System.out is PrintStream and the other is PrintWriter . PrintStream intended to record a stream of bytes , and PrintWriter intended to record a stream of characters (and, therefore, it deals with character encodings, etc.). For most use cases there is no difference.

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System.out is an instance of PrintStream

So your question narrows to PrintStream vs PrintWriter

  • All characters printed by PrintStream are converted to bytes using the platform's default character encoding. (Syso directly writes to the system output / console)

  • The PrintWriter class should be used in situations where you want to write characters, not bytes.

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Yes, there is a slight difference. out.println() is short and is used in JSP, while PrintWriter used in servlets. out.println() also inferred from PrintWriter.

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