什么是stream？

平常最经常看到的就是IOstream了，还有其他各种stream，FileStream，NetworkStream。

stream表示的是一连串的objects，（在java的世界里，所有的东西都是objects），譬如连续好几个int，好几个float，或者其他类对象等等。

想象stream就是一条河流，我们不用关心它的源头在哪里，只需要知道我们可以在目的地（海？）可以收集到来自五湖四海的一样。一般情况下，我们也不用管这河流源头在哪里，只需要拿到我们需要的东西。

同样，通过stream，我们想获取data，不用管其源头（ a file, a socket，serial ports等等）。

stream就是提供了我们一个抽象层把我们和data的来源隔开。

Typical operations on a stream:

• read one byte. Next time you read, you'll get the next byte, and so on.
• read several bytes from the stream into an array
• seek (move your current position in the stream, so that next time you read you get bytes from the new position)
• write one byte
• write several bytes from an array into the stream
• skip bytes from the stream (this is like read, but you ignore the data. Or if you prefer it's like seek but can only go forwards.)
• push back bytes into an input stream (this is like "undo" for read - you shove a few bytes back up the stream, so that next time you read that's what you'll see. It's occasionally useful for parsers, as is:
• peek (look at bytes without reading them, so that they're still there in the stream to be read later)

summary：

a stream is just a source of input, hiding away (abstracting) another source. As long as you don't break the abstraction, your code will be very flexible.

注：本文从stackoverflow总结而来，详细请看：

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1216380/what-is-a-stream/1216400#1216400

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/507747/can-you-explain-the-concept-of-streams