InputStream vs InputStreamReader

Question

What\'s the benefit of using InputStream over InputStreamReader, or vice versa.

Here is an example of InputStream in action:

Answer 1

Well InputStreamReader is used to directly read characters.

So reading them as int and then converting to char is not really optimal.

That is the main difference I believe.

InputStream gives you the bytes, and the InputStreamReader gives you already chars so it reads the InputStream 8bits at a time.

In addition, if you're reading big chunks of text, you can even wrap the InputStreamReader in a BufferedReader which provides you with some nice methods to let's say read whole lines at once.

This helping you out ?

You can also read this article: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/io/charstreams.html

Cheers,