difference between System.out.println() and System.err.println()

Question

What is the difference between System.out.println() and System.err.println() in Java?

Answer 1

In Java System.out.println() will print to the standard out of the system you are using. On the other hand, System.err.println() will print to the standard error.

If you are using a simple Java console application, both outputs will be the same (the command line or console) but you can reconfigure the streams so that for example, System.out still prints to the console but System.err writes to a file.

Also, IDEs like Eclipse show System.err in red text and System.out in black text by default.

Answer 2

System.out is "standard output" (stdout) and System.err is "error output" (stderr). Along with System.in (stdin), these are the three standard I/O streams in the Unix model. Most modern programming environments (C, Perl, etc.) support this model.

The standard output stream is used to print output from "normal operations" of the program, while the error stream is for "error messages". These need to be separate -- though in most cases they appear on the same console.

Suppose you have a simple program where you enter a phone number and it prints out the person who has that number. If you enter an invalid number, the program should inform you of that error, but it shouldn't do that as the answer: If you enter "999-ABC-4567" and the program prints an error message "Not a valid number", that doesn't mean there is a person named "Not a valid number" whose number is 999-ABC-4567. So it prints out nothing to the standard output, and the message "Not a valid number" is printed to the error output.

You can set up the execution environment to distinguish between the two streams, for example, make the standard output print to the screen and error output print to a file.