I need to specify an OutputStream for an API I'm using, but I don't actually have a need for the output. Does Java have an OutputStream equivalent to > /dev/null?
Java does not have a NullOutputStream class. You could however roll your own OutputStream that ignores any data written to it - in other words write(int b), write(byte[] b) and write(byte[] b, int off, int len) will have empty method bodies. This is what the Common IO NullOutputStream class does.
It's not mentioned yet, so I'll also add Guava's ByteStreams.nullOutputStream(), as some might prefer Guava over Apache Commons IO or already have it in their project.
I believe that this is what you're looking for, I was looking for the same thing:
This is for redirecting output streams from standard error, standard out in ProcessBuilder objects.
Blockquote
pb.redirectError( ProcessBuilder.Redirect.appendTo( new File( "NUL:" ) ) );
Since Java 11, there is a static utility that does exactly what you need, a static factory method OutputStream.nullOutputStream():
Returns a new OutputStream which discards all bytes. The returned stream is initially open. The stream is closed by calling the close() method. Subsequent calls to close() have no effect.
There is new boy in the town, that takes care of this like a charm, just few lines of code should work.
Its JDK 11 and nullWriter() has been introduced there, that takes care of this. Here goes the code to deal with same old problem, new way without worrying about Operating System(OS).
String fileContent = "Welcome to StackOverflow readers !! Here goes the question link...";
Writer writer = Writer.nullWriter();
writer.write(fileContent);
writer.close();