Lesson 4	Input streams
Objective	Examine how input streams are used to read data.

Input streams read Data

The InputStream class serves as the base class for all input Stream: A stream is a medium through which data is transferred. A stream acts sort of like a pipe in the real world, except that it shuttles moving data instead of water or gas. Data is transferred through a stream one byte at a time, and can be directed in different ways. streams, and supports the following commonly used methods:

`read()`	reads a byte or series of bytes of data
`skip()`	skips over bytes of data
`mark()`	marks the current position in the input stream
`reset()`	resets the stream to the position previously set by a call to `mark()`

One limitation of input streams is that they read data as a series of bytes. The DataInput interface^[1] provides a means of reading data in one of Java's primitive data formats. The DataInput interface provides methods such as readBoolean(), readInt(), and readFloat(). The DataInputStream class implements the DataInput interface.
The Reader class provides an alternative to InputStream that supports internationalization. The Reader class is designed similarly to InputStream and supports a similar set of methods, so you can use both classes in a similar manner.

[1] Interface: An interface is a set of methods that Java classes can implement.