Saving to txt file java

Question

so I have my program working but the only problem is when the information is saved to the .txt file, there are no spaces eg the text file says "paul214" when it should say "paul 2 1 4", and does anyone know to stop the file over writing itself each time a new player plays the game?

import java.util.Random;
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.IOException;

public class GuessingGame3 {

    public static void main(String[] args)
    {

        Random generator = new Random(); //This is were the computer selects the Target

        int guess;
        int count = 0;
        int Target;
        String userName;
        String playagain;
        boolean play = true;
        int session = 0;
        int sessions = 0;
        int lowestScore = 6;

        Scanner consoleIn = new Scanner(System.in); 
        Scanner name = new Scanner(System.in); 

        System.out.println("Hello! Please enter your name:\n"); 
        userName= name.nextLine();//This is were the user enters his/her name

        System.out.println("Hello "+ userName + " :) Welcome to the game!\n");


        while (play == true) //This is where the game starts up
        {
            session++; //This counts the number of goes the player has 
            Target = generator.nextInt(100) + 1;
            System.out.println("Can you guess the number i'm thinking off? You will have 6 attempts to guess the correct number"); //This is where the computer asks the user to guess the number and how many guesses they will have

            do {
                guess = consoleIn.nextInt();
                count++;

                if (guess > Target)
                System.out.println("Sorry! Your guess was too high! Guess again :)"); //This is to help the player get to the answer 
                else 
                if (guess < Target)
                System.out.println("Sorry! Your guess was too low! Guess again :)"); //This is to help the player get to the answer 
               }        
                while(guess != Target && count <6);

                if(guess == Target) {
                System.out.println("Congratulations "+  userName + ", it took you "+ count +" attempts to guess correctly!"); //This tells the player that they got the correct answer and how many attempts it took
                    sessions++;
                        }   
                else 
                {
                System.out.println("Sorry "+ userName + ", You've used up all of your guesses! The correct answer was "+ Target + "!");  //This tells the player that they failed to find the number and then tells them what the correct answer  
                }
                while ( count < lowestScore)
                {
                    lowestScore = count;
                }
                {
                Scanner answer = new Scanner(System.in);
                System.out.println("Would you like to play again "+ userName +"? [Y/N]");//This asks the player if they would like to play again
                playagain = answer.nextLine();
               if(playagain.equalsIgnoreCase("Y"))//This is what happens if the player opts to play again
                {
                play = true;
                count = 0;


                } else if(playagain.equalsIgnoreCase("N"))//This is what happens if the player opts to exit the game
                {
                    play = false;
                    System.out.println("Thanks for playing "+ userName +"! :) Please come back soon!");
            try {//This is where the program writes the information about the player to a .txt file 
                BufferedWriter writer =
                    new BufferedWriter ( new FileWriter(".\\Records.txt"));

                    writer.write(userName);

                    writer.write(String.valueOf(session));

                    writer.write(String.valueOf(sessions));

                    writer.write(String.valueOf(lowestScore));

                    writer.close();
            } catch (IOException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
                    //This displays the information saved to the .txt file to the player. 
                    System.out.println("The number of goes you had: "+ session +"");
                    System.out.println("The number of times you guessed correctly: "+ sessions +"");
                    System.out.println("Your lowest score was: "+ lowestScore +"!");
                    break;
                }

             }
        }
    }
}       

Answer 1

You need to explicitly add spaces if you want them to be there:

writer.write(userName);
writer.write(" ");
writer.write(String.valueOf(session));
writer.write(" ");
writer.write(String.valueOf(sessions));
writer.write(" ");
writer.write(String.valueOf(lowestScore));

As for your second question you can append to the file like so:

BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter ( new FileWriter(".\\Records.txt", true));
writer.append("your content");

The second parameter true sets the FileWriter to append mode.

Answer 2

The reason there are no spaces is because you didn't specify to add them. The variables do not have a space at the end, so they do not write that way. Do this instead:

try {//This is where the program writes the information about the player to a .txt file 
    BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter ( new FileWriter(".\\Records.txt"));

    writer.write(userName + " ");

    writer.write(String.valueOf(session) + " ");

    writer.write(String.valueOf(sessions) + " ");

    writer.write(String.valueOf(lowestScore));

    writer.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

Or, you could write it using string concatenation:

try {//This is where the program writes the information about the player to a .txt file 
    BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter ( new FileWriter(".\\Records.txt"));
    writer.write(userName + " " + String.valueOf(session) + " " + String.valueOf(sessions) + " " + String.valueOf(lowestScore));
    writer.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

Answer 3

does anyone know to stop the file over writing itself each time a new player plays the game?

BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter (new FileWriter(".\\Records.txt", true)); // true for appending a text to existing file

Answer 4

If you want spaces, you need to write spaces to the text file. Example:

writer.write(userName + " ");

If you don't want your text file overwritten, set append to true when you instantiate your FileWriter object:

new FileWriter(".\\Records.txt", true)

Answer 5

You can use \t to create a tab in a file.

writer.write(userName+"\t");
................


  output = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(my_file_name, true));//you have to open the file in append mode