How to write console output to a txt file

to preserve the console output, that is, write to a file and also have it displayed on the console, you could use a class like:

    public class TeePrintStream extends PrintStream {
        private final PrintStream second;

        public TeePrintStream(OutputStream main, PrintStream second) {
            super(main);
            this.second = second;
        }

        /**
         * Closes the main stream. 
         * The second stream is just flushed but <b>not</b> closed.
         * @see java.io.PrintStream#close()
         */
        @Override
        public void close() {
            // just for documentation
            super.close();
        }

        @Override
        public void flush() {
            super.flush();
            second.flush();
        }

        @Override
        public void write(byte[] buf, int off, int len) {
            super.write(buf, off, len);
            second.write(buf, off, len);
        }

        @Override
        public void write(int b) {
            super.write(b);
            second.write(b);
        }

        @Override
        public void write(byte[] b) throws IOException {
            super.write(b);
            second.write(b);
        }
    }

and used as in:

    FileOutputStream file = new FileOutputStream("test.txt");
    TeePrintStream tee = new TeePrintStream(file, System.out);
    System.setOut(tee);

(just an idea, not complete)

You need to do something like this:

PrintStream out = new PrintStream(new FileOutputStream("output.txt"));
System.setOut(out);

The second statement is the key. It changes the value of the supposedly "final" System.out attribute to be the supplied PrintStream value.

There are analogous methods (setIn and setErr) for changing the standard input and error streams; refer to the java.lang.System javadocs for details.

A more general version of the above is this:

PrintStream out = new PrintStream(
        new FileOutputStream("output.txt", append), autoFlush);
System.setOut(out);

If append is true, the stream will append to an existing file instead of truncating it. If autoflush is true, the output buffer will be flushed whenever a byte array is written, one of the println methods is called, or a \n is written.

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I'd just like to add that it is usually a better idea to use a logging subsystem like Log4j, Logback or the standard Java java.util.logging subsystem. These offer fine-grained logging control via runtime configuration files, support for rolling log files, feeds to system logging, and so on.

Alternatively, if you are not "logging" then consider the following:

• With typical shells, you can redirecting standard output (or standard error) to a file on the command line; e.g.

  $ java MyApp > output.txt   
  

  For more information, refer to a shell tutorial or manual entry.

• You could change your application to use an out stream passed as a method parameter or via a singleton or dependency injection rather than writing to System.out.

Changing System.out may cause nasty surprises for other code in your JVM that is not expecting this to happen. (A properly designed Java library will avoid depending on System.out and System.err, but you could be unlucky.)

There is no need to write any code, just in cmd on the console you can write:

javac myFile.java
java ClassName > a.txt

The output data is stored in the a.txt file.