Currently I have the user interacting with the sketch which gives me the following string:

timeStamp + "\t" + userID + "\t" + num

where timestamp is the time they interacted, userID is a unique id they entered, and num is the number of times they have used the program.

I want to save this information to a file and have it permanently there.  But the createWrite method requires output to be flushed and closed on exit in order for the file to be readable.  Meaning if the program crashes before doing this, i'll loose all this information.

Is there a better way to do this?

Also - in order for 'num' to work, each time a user interacts, i need to read and parse all the previous lines, seeing if the userIDs match, and if they do, don't enter a new line, but increase that users num by 1.

Writing this I get the feeling what I need is an arrayList.  But i am still not sure on writing this to a file.

Thanks,
TB

i thought of another option that might work for you.

if you intend to maintain all information created within a sketch even after closing it you can easily use xml to achieve so; all you have to do is save the information to the xml file retrieving it when needed. if i recall correctly flushing would not be required for the file to be readable.

i guess this way you can prevent losing information even if the sketch crashes.

check http://processing.org/reference/XMLElement.html and its methods.

hope this helps.
p