# Printing console output

**URL:** <https://discourse.processing.org/t/printing-console-output/29279>\
**Category:** Coding Questions\
**Created:** [April 11, 2021, 10:05am UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/printing-console-output/29279 "2021-04-11T10:05:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Th3cG](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/th3cg/32/12780_2.png) [@Th3cG](https://discourse.processing.org/u/Th3cG)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2021, 10:05am UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/printing-console-output/29279/1 "2021-04-11T10:05:37Z")

</div>

Hello,  
I’m trying to build a small sketch asking a website some weather data. Unfortunately, the site I’m asking data to throws back a 403 error and Processing seems not able to work. So I tried in this way, editing some code I found on the web:

```auto
// import libraries
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;

URL url;

//Create a writer to print the console out
PrintWriter output = createWriter("weatherText.txt");

//
try {

  // Create a URL object
  url = new URL("URL-OF-THE-WEBSITE");
  URLConnection conn = url.openConnection();
  conn.setRequestProperty("User-Agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)");
  // Read all of the text returned by the HTTP server
  BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader
    (new InputStreamReader(conn.getInputStream(), "UTF-8"));

  String htmlText;

  while ( (htmlText = in.readLine ()) != null) {
    System.out.println(htmlText);
  }
  in.close();
} 

//Should be called once the website throws 403 back, case 1
catch (MalformedURLException e) {
  e.printStackTrace(output);
  System.out.println(output.toString());
} 

//Should be called once the website throws 403 back, case 2
catch (IOException e) {
  e.printStackTrace(output);
  System.out.println(output.toString());
}

//Clearing and closing after the job is done 
finally {
  output.flush(); 
  output.close(); 
  exit();
}

```

The console seems ok with all the text I want to work on. I now need to take the text in the console and save it in the file I create (weatherText.txt, which is correctly generated), but the file is empty.

May you kindly help me to figure out how to solve this issue?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![micuat](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/micuat/32/19407_2.png) [@micuat](https://discourse.processing.org/u/micuat)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2021, 12:41pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/printing-console-output/29279/2 "2021-04-11T12:41:55Z")

</div>

you need to output to the `PrintWriter` 🙂

```auto
output.println(htmlText);

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Th3cG](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/th3cg/32/12780_2.png) [@Th3cG](https://discourse.processing.org/u/Th3cG)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2021, 1:14pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/printing-console-output/29279/3 "2021-04-11T13:14:56Z")

</div>

> [@micuat](#):
>
> ```auto
> output.println(htmlText);
> 
> ```

Hello micuat,  
the code you suggest is already included in line 24 of my sketch. I guess the issue arises in one of the two “catch” statement after that. There (lines 32 and 38) I wrote

```auto
  System.out.println(output.toString());

```

but replacing it with your code I have

```auto
        The variable "htmlText" does not exist

```

I think I have not properly defined local/global variables… any suggestion?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![micuat](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/micuat/32/19407_2.png) [@micuat](https://discourse.processing.org/u/micuat)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2021, 1:26pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/printing-console-output/29279/4 "2021-04-11T13:26:36Z")

</div>

> [@Th3cG](#):
>
> the code you suggest is already included in line 24 of my sketch

what you have is

```auto
System.out.println(htmlText);

```

which outputs to the console.

What I suggest is

```auto
output.println(htmlText);

```

to write to `output` object (the variable name may be confusing!)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Th3cG](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/th3cg/32/12780_2.png) [@Th3cG](https://discourse.processing.org/u/Th3cG)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2021, 3:11pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/printing-console-output/29279/5 "2021-04-11T15:11:42Z")

</div>

Whoops think I forgot to check the output 😅  
Your solution works fine!

Can you please be so kind to address me to any resource/tutorial to go deeper in the print/println/printWriter stuff?

Thank you.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![micuat](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/micuat/32/19407_2.png) [@micuat](https://discourse.processing.org/u/micuat)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2021, 5:42pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/printing-console-output/29279/6 "2021-04-11T17:42:40Z")

</div>

no problem!

basics are here  
[https://processing.org/reference/PrintWriter.html](https://processing.org/reference/PrintWriter.html)

if you want more info  
[https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/io/PrintWriter.html](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/io/PrintWriter.html)