How do I create a file and write to it in Java?

In Java 7 and up:

try (Writer writer = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(
              new FileOutputStream("filename.txt"), "utf-8"))) {
   writer.write("something");
}

There are useful utilities for that though:

• FileUtils.writeStringtoFile(..) from commons-io
• Files.write(..) from guava

Note also that you can use a FileWriter, but it uses the default encoding, which is often a bad idea - it's best to specify the encoding explicitly.

Below is the original, prior-to-Java 7 answer

Writer writer = null;

try {
    writer = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(
          new FileOutputStream("filename.txt"), "utf-8"));
    writer.write("Something");
} catch (IOException ex) {
    // Report
} finally {
   try {writer.close();} catch (Exception ex) {/*ignore*/}
}

See also: Reading, Writing, and Creating Files (includes NIO2).

If you already have the content you want to write to the file (and not generated on the fly), the java.nio.file.Files addition in Java 7 as part of native I/O provides the simplest and most efficient way to achieve your goals.

Basically creating and writing to a file is one line only, moreover one simple method call!

The following example creates and writes to 6 different files to showcase how it can be used:

Charset utf8 = StandardCharsets.UTF_8;
List<String> lines = Arrays.asList("1st line", "2nd line");
byte[] data = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};

try {
    Files.write(Paths.get("file1.bin"), data);
    Files.write(Paths.get("file2.bin"), data,
            StandardOpenOption.CREATE, StandardOpenOption.APPEND);
    Files.write(Paths.get("file3.txt"), "content".getBytes());
    Files.write(Paths.get("file4.txt"), "content".getBytes(utf8));
    Files.write(Paths.get("file5.txt"), lines, utf8);
    Files.write(Paths.get("file6.txt"), lines, utf8,
            StandardOpenOption.CREATE, StandardOpenOption.APPEND);
} catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

public class Program {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String text = "Hello world";
        BufferedWriter output = null;
        try {
            File file = new File("example.txt");
            output = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(file));
            output.write(text);
        } catch ( IOException e ) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } finally {
          if ( output != null ) {
            output.close();
          }
        }
    }
}

Here's a little example program to create or overwrite a file. It's the long version so it can be understood more easily.

import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
import java.io.Writer;

public class writer {
    public void writing() {
        try {
            //Whatever the file path is.
            File statText = new File("E:/Java/Reference/bin/images/statsTest.txt");
            FileOutputStream is = new FileOutputStream(statText);
            OutputStreamWriter osw = new OutputStreamWriter(is);    
            Writer w = new BufferedWriter(osw);
            w.write("POTATO!!!");
            w.close();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            System.err.println("Problem writing to the file statsTest.txt");
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[]args) {
        writer write = new writer();
        write.writing();
    }
}

A very simple way to create and write to a file in Java:

import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileWriter;

public class CreateFiles {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try{
            // Create new file
            String content = "This is the content to write into create file";
            String path="D:\\a\\hi.txt";
            File file = new File(path);

            // If file doesn't exists, then create it
            if (!file.exists()) {
                file.createNewFile();
            }

            FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(file.getAbsoluteFile());
            BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(fw);

            // Write in file
            bw.write(content);

            // Close connection
            bw.close();
        }
        catch(Exception e){
            System.out.println(e);
        }
    }
}