Java: Difference between PrintStream and PrintWriter

Question

What is the difference between PrintStream and PrintWriter? They have many methods in common due to which I often mix these two classes up. Moreove

Answer 1

Writers like PrintWriter are for text output, streams are for binary output. The writers handle character set stuff for you. Streams don't because it's assumed that you don't want that sort of conversion, which would mess up your binary data, and would be using a writer if you did.