Answer:
Image files, audio files, executable files from other programming languages, many kinds of data files, ... the list is endless.
Image files, audio files, executable files from other programming languages, many kinds of data files, ... the list is endless.
A stream object may be:
There are many types of streams. For example, a stream might be an "input, character-oriented, processing stream". Another stream might be an "byte-oriented output stream". Not only are there many types of streams, there are many ways to connect them together. The I/O aspects of a program can get complicated.
This situation is common to all industrial-strength programming languages. I/O is a big topic because of the wide variety of IO devices and the wide variety of data formats. A production language must be able to read data from sources written by any language running on any type of computer.
For example, a program might need to read data from magnetic tapes written 30 years ago by a COBOL program running on an IBM mainframe. (You would likely use byte-oriented streams for this).
Fortunately, if a program is written in Java it will use identical data formats on all computers. If a Java program running on a Macintosh writes a text file, that file can easily be read by a Java program running on a PC or on any other computer.
This is not true of most other languages. A C program running on one type of computer is unlikely to create a file that can easily be read by a C program running on another type of computer. Worse than that, two different C compilers for the same computer might use different data formats!
A C++ program running on a IBM mainframe has written a file of integer data. Do you think that a C++ program running on a PC can read this file without trouble?