Difference between FileReader vs FileInputStream in Java?

Even though both FileReader and FileInputStream are used to read data from a file in Java, they are quite a different. The main difference between the FileReader and FileInputStream is that one read data from character stream while other read data from a byte stream. The FileReader automatically converts the raw bytes into character by using platform's default character encoding. This means you should use this class if you are reading from a text file which has same character encoding as the default one. If you happen to read a text file encoded in different character encoding then you should use InputStreamReader with specified character encoding. An InputStreamReader is a bridge between byte stream and character stream and can take a FileInputStream as a source. Though, it's worth remembering that it caches the character encoding which means you cannot change the encoding scheme programmatically.

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