Console output with FileWriter

Question

Most probably a FileWriter is not meant to write to a console, but it does. So I use it for easy switching between the two destinations. I only wonder what character conversion takes place when it comes to 8-bit characters.

Run the following code without any parameter and you will see the difference between System.out.println(...) and the FileWriter's output. Run the code giving a file specification as parameter and you will see that the FileWriter works as expected.

I tried to:

• translate the test string to UTF-8
• passing a character set (StandardCharsets.UTF_8, Charset.defaultCharset()) to the FileWriter
• specifying FileDescriptor.out for the FileWriter

but to no avail.

Other solutions are ready-at-hand, but still I would like to know whether using a FileWriter is possible.

import java.io.*;
import java.nio.charset.*;

public class ConsoleOutput {

  static public void main(String args[]) {
    String s = "Hello äöüß áàâçéèê";
    String filespc = args.length==0 ? "CON:" : args[0];

    boolean console= filespc.equals("CON:"); // For both cmd.exe & PowerShell.
    try (BufferedWriter outfile= new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(filespc))) {
      
//      if (console) s = new String(s.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8),
//                          StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
      System.out.println(s);
      outfile.write(s);
      outfile.newLine();
    }
    catch (IOException e) {
      System.out.println(e);
    }

  }
}