Java - open txt file and clear all multiple spaces - java

I have a txt file and what I am trying to do is open it and delete all multiple spaces so they become only one. I use:
br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("C:\\Users\\Chris\\Desktop\\file_two.txt"));
bw = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter("C:\\Users\\Chris\\Desktop\\file_two.txt"));
while ((current_line = br.readLine()) != null) {
//System.out.println("Here.");
current_line = current_line.replaceAll("\\s+", " ");
bw.write(current_line);
}
br.close();
bw.close();
However, as it seems correct according to me at least, nothing is written on the file. If I use a system.out.println command, it is not printed, meaning that execution is never in the while loop... What do I do wrong? Thanks

you are reading the file and at the same time writing contents on it..it is not allowed...
so better way to read the file first and store the processed text in another file and finally replace the original file with the new one..try this
br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("C:\\Users\\Chris\\Desktop\\file_two.txt"));
bw = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter("C:\\Users\\Chris\\Desktop\\file_two_copy.txt"));
String current_line;
while ((current_line = br.readLine()) != null) {
//System.out.println("Here.");
current_line = current_line.replaceAll("\\s+", " ");
bw.write(current_line);
bw.newLine();
}
br.close();
bw.close();
File copyFile = new File("C:\\Users\\Chris\\Desktop\\file_two_copy.txt");
File originalFile = new File("C:\\Users\\Chris\\Desktop\\file_two.txt");
originalFile.delete();
copyFile.renameTo(originalFile);
it may help...

There are few problems with your approach:
Main one is that you are trying to read and write to same file at the same time.
other is that new FileWriter(..) always creates new empty file which kind of prevents FileReader from reading anything from your file.
You should read content from file1 and write its modified version in file2. After that replace file1 with file2.
Your code can look more or less like
Path input = Paths.get("input.txt");
Path output = Paths.get("output.txt");
List<String> lines = Files.readAllLines(input);
lines.replaceAll(line -> line.replaceAll("\\s+", " "));
Files.write(output, lines);
Files.move(output, input, StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING);

You must read first then write, you are not allowed to read and write to the same file at the same time, you would need to use RandomAccessFile to do that.
If you don't want to learn a new technique, you will need to either write to a separate file, or cache all lines to memory(IE an ArrayList) but you must close the BufferedReader before you Initialize your BufferedWriter, or it will get a file access error.
Edit:
In case you want to look into it, here is a RandomAccessFile use case example for your intended use. It is worth pointing out this will only work if the final line length is less than or equal to the original, because this technique is basically overwriting the existing text, but should be very fast with a small memory overhead and would work on extremely large files:
public static void readWrite(File file) throws IOException{
RandomAccessFile raf = new RandomAccessFile(file, "rw");
String newLine = System.getProperty("line.separator");
String line = null;
int write_pos = 0;
while((line = raf.readLine()) != null){
line = line.replaceAll("\\s+", " ") + newLine;
byte[] bytes = line.getBytes();
long read_pos = raf.getFilePointer();
raf.seek(write_pos);
raf.write(bytes, 0, bytes.length);
write_pos += bytes.length;
raf.seek(read_pos);
}
raf.setLength(write_pos);
raf.close();
}

Related

Using BufferedWriter and the newLine attribute to insert a line after a string of text

First off I am new at coding in java. I have done extensive research prior to posting this question but have not found the exact answer to my question. I am sure it is my lack of experience, but any assistance the community can provide would be much appreciated.
I am trying to debug a utility class that I have coded. The code is working except for the bit about adding a new line to the substituted text.
Here is the piece of code that is generating an error in NetBeans IDE. The error is incompatible types: Boolean can't be converted to int
try (BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter (NewCSVFile),true))
What I am trying to do is get this code to read a CSV text file, substitute and the write the new csv data to a new file but preserve the original new lines in the file. And, I want to ensure that the method used is platform independent thus why I am using BufferedWriter.
Here is all the code for your review.
public class TxtFileConverter {
public static void main (String[] args) {
// Location of the file you want to work with.
File CSVFile = new File("/Users/data.csv");
File NewCSVFile = new File("/Users/NewData.csv");
String search = "[,](?!\\w)";
String replace = ",0";
try{
FileReader fr = new FileReader(CSVFile);
String s;
String totalStr = "";
try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(fr)) {
while ((s = br.readLine()) != null) {
totalStr += s;
}
totalStr = totalStr.replaceAll(search, replace);
try (BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter
(NewCSVFile),true)) {
bw.write(totalStr);
bw.newLine();
}
}
}catch(IOException e){
}
}
}
I think you are trying to read some lines from a file and write it to another file. In the output file, you get all the code in a single line.
I think the bug is in this piece of code.
while ((s = br.readLine()) != null) {
totalStr += s;
}
If you add a statement to add a new line character after reading a line from input file, you should get the desired output.
while ((s = br.readLine()) != null) {
totalStr += s;
totalStr += "\n";
}
The following code adds a newline character at the end of the file.
bw.newLine();
What do you think that true argument is doing in the BufferedWriter constructor? The second and optional argument is the buffer size, an integer. You probably don't even need to supply that argument unless you're doing something rather odd.
try (BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(NewCSVFile)))
BufferedWriter has only two constructors:
public BufferedWriter(Writer out) //sz = defaultCharBufferSize = 8192
public BufferedWriter(Writer out, int sz) //sz Output-buffer size, a positive integer
There is no option with second boolean argument. I recommend to use first constructor in your case.

Why does introducing a FileWriter delete all the content in the file?

I have a text file with some text in it and i'm planning on replacing certain characters in the text file. So for this i have to read the file using a buffered reader which wraps a file reader.
File file = new File("new.txt");
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
String line = null;
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(line);
}
But since i have to edit characters i have to introduce a file writer and add the code which has a string method called replace all. so the overall code will look as given below.
File file = new File("new.txt");
FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(file);
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
String line = null;
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(line);
fw.write(br.readLine().replaceAll("t", "1") + "\n");
}
Problem is when i introduce a file writer to the code (By just having the initialization part and when i run the program it deletes the content in the file regardless of adding the following line)
fw.write(br.readLine().replaceAll("t", "1") + "\n");
Why is this occurring? am i following the correct approach to edit characters in a text file?
Or is there any other way of doing this?
Thank you.
public FileWriter(String fileName,
boolean append)
Parameters:
fileName - String The system-dependent filename.
append - boolean if true, then data will be written to the end of the
file rather than the beginning.
To append data use
new FileWriter(file, true);
The problem is that you're trying to write to the file while you're reading from it. A better solution would be to create a second file, put the transformed data into it, then replace the first file with it when you're done. Or if you don't want to do that, read all of the data out of the file first, then open it for writing and write the transformed data.
Also, have you considered using a text-processing language solution such as awk, sed or perl: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/112023/how-can-i-replace-a-string-in-a-files
You need to read the file first, and then, only after you read the entire file, you can write to it.
Or you open a different file for writing and then afterwards you replace the old file with the new one.
The reason is that once you start writing to a file, it is truncated (the data that was in the file is deleted).
The only way to avoid that is to open the file in "append" mode. With that mode, you start writing at the end of the file, so you don't delete its content. However, you won't be able to modify the existing content, you will only add content.
Maybe like this
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
try {
File file = new File("/Users/alexanderkrum/IdeaProjects/printerTest/src/atmDep.txt");
Scanner myReader = new Scanner(file);
ArrayList<Integer> numbers = new ArrayList<>();
while (myReader.hasNextLine()) {
numbers.add(myReader.nextInt() + 1);
}
myReader.close();
FileWriter myWriter = new FileWriter(file);
for (Integer number :
numbers) {
myWriter.write(number.toString() + '\n');
}
myWriter.close();
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
System.out.println("An error occurred.");
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
Just add at last :
fw.close();
this will close it ,then it will not delete anything in the file.
:)

Copying and merging two files

I am using java File Streams. I have two files. First file may or may not be empty. The second file contains strings and floats. If the first file is empty then I want to copy second file in it. else I want to merge the files.
Have tried RandomAccessFile but it's not working.
If you want to copy a file then use
public static Path copy(Path source,
Path target,
CopyOption... options)
throws IOException
File.copy()
If you want to merge them then open the file in write mode in which you want to append the data with appending mode.
BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWritr(new FileWriter("file.txr",true));
and then write the data in bw which you have read from the source file.
My solution would look like this:
public void CopyFile(File one, File two) throws IOException {
// Declare the reader and the writer
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(one));
BufferedWriter out;
String contentOfFileOne = "";
// Read the content of the first file
while(in.ready()){
contentOfFileOne += in.readLine();
}
// Trim all whitespaces
contentOfFileOne.trim();
// If the first file is empty
if(contentOfFileOne.isEmpty()){
// Create a new Writer to the first file and a reader
// from the second file
in.close();
out = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(one));
in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(two));
while(in.ready()){
String currentLine = in.readLine();
out.write(currentLine);
}
// Close them accordingly
in.close();
out.close();
} else {
// If the first file contains something
in.close();
out = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(one,true));
in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(two));
// Copy the content of file two at the end of file one
while(in.ready()){
String currentLine = in.readLine();
out.write(currentLine);
}
in.close();
out.close();
}
}
The comments should explain the functionality.
I think this is supposed to be the most efficient option
FileChannel f1 = FileChannel.open(Paths.get("1"), StandardOpenOption.APPEND);
FileChannel f2 = FileChannel.open(Paths.get("2"));
f1.transferFrom(f2, f1.size(), Long.MAX_VALUE);

Read XML, Replace Text and Write to same XML file via Java

Currently I am trying something very simple. I am looking through an XML document for a certain phrase upon which I try to replace it. The problem I am having is that when I read the lines I store each line into a StringBuffer. When I write the it to a document everything is written on a single line.
Here my code:
File xmlFile = new File("abc.xml")
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReade(xmlFile));
String line = null;
while((line = br.readLine())!= null)
{
if(line.indexOf("abc") != -1)
{
line = line.replaceAll("abc","xyz");
}
sb.append(line);
}
br.close();
BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(xmlFile));
bw.write(sb.toString());
bw.close();
I am assuming I need a new line character when I prefer sb.append but unfortunately I don't know which character to use as "\n" does not work.
Thanks in advance!
P.S. I figured there must be a way to use Xalan to format the XML file after I write to it or something. Not sure how to do that though.
The readline reads everything between the newline characters so when you write back out, obviously the newline characters are missing. These characters depend on the OS: windows uses two characters to do a newline, unix uses one for example. To be OS agnostic, retrieve the system property "line.separator":
String newline = System.getProperty("line.separator");
and append it to your stringbuffer:
sb.append(line).append(newline);
Modified as suggested by Brel, your text-substituting approach should work, and it will work well enough for simple applications.
If things start to get a little hairier, and you end up wanting to select elements based on their position in the XML structure, and if you need to be sure to change element text but not tag text (think <abc>abc</abc>), then you'll want to call in in the cavalry and process the XML with an XML parser.
Essentially you read in a Document using a DocuemntBuilder, you hop around the document's nodes doing whatever you need to, and then ask the Document to write itself back to file. Or do you ask the parser? Anyway, most XML parsers have a handful of options that let you format the XML output: You can specify indentation (or not) and maybe newlines for every opening tag, that kinda thing, to make your XML look pretty.
Sb would be the StringBuffer object, which has not been instantiated in this example. This can added before the while loop:
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);
String filePath = scan.next();
String oldString = "old_string";
String newString = "new_string";
String oldContent = "";
BufferedReader br = null;
FileWriter writer = null;
File xmlFile = new File(filePath);
try {
br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(xmlFile));
String line = br.readLine();
while (line != null) {
oldContent = oldContent + line + System.lineSeparator();
line = br.readLine();
}
String newContent = oldContent.replaceAll(oldString, newString);
writer = new FileWriter(xmlFile);
writer.write(newContent);
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
try {
scan.close();
br.close();
writer.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}

Prepend lines to file in Java

Is there a way to prepend a line to the File in Java, without creating a temporary file, and writing the needed content to it?
No, there is no way to do that SAFELY in Java. (Or AFAIK, any other programming language.)
No filesystem implementation in any mainstream operating system supports this kind of thing, and you won't find this feature supported in any mainstream programming languages.
Real world file systems are implemented on devices that store data as fixed sized "blocks". It is not possible to implement a file system model where you can insert bytes into the middle of a file without significantly slowing down file I/O, wasting disk space or both.
The solutions that involve an in-place rewrite of the file are inherently unsafe. If your application is killed or the power dies in the middle of the prepend / rewrite process, you are likely to lose data. I would NOT recommend using that approach in practice.
Use a temporary file and renaming. It is safer.
There is a way, it involves rewriting the whole file though (but no temporary file). As others mentioned, no file system supports prepending content to a file. Here is some sample code that uses a RandomAccessFile to write and read content while keeping some content buffered in memory:
public static void main(final String args[]) throws Exception {
File f = File.createTempFile(Main.class.getName(), "tmp");
f.deleteOnExit();
System.out.println(f.getPath());
// put some dummy content into our file
BufferedWriter w = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(new FileOutputStream(f)));
for (int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
w.write(UUID.randomUUID().toString());
w.write('\n');
}
w.flush();
w.close();
// append "some uuids" to our file
int bufLength = 4096;
byte[] appendBuf = "some uuids\n".getBytes();
byte[] writeBuf = appendBuf;
byte[] readBuf = new byte[bufLength];
int writeBytes = writeBuf.length;
RandomAccessFile rw = new RandomAccessFile(f, "rw");
int read = 0;
int write = 0;
while (true) {
// seek to read position and read content into read buffer
rw.seek(read);
int bytesRead = rw.read(readBuf, 0, readBuf.length);
// seek to write position and write content from write buffer
rw.seek(write);
rw.write(writeBuf, 0, writeBytes);
// no bytes read - end of file reached
if (bytesRead < 0) {
// end of
break;
}
// update seek positions for write and read
read += bytesRead;
write += writeBytes;
writeBytes = bytesRead;
// reuse buffer, create new one to replace (short) append buf
byte[] nextWrite = writeBuf == appendBuf ? new byte[bufLength] : writeBuf;
writeBuf = readBuf;
readBuf = nextWrite;
};
rw.close();
// now show the content of our file
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream(f)));
String line;
while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(line);
}
}
You could store the file content in a String and prepend the desired line by using a StringBuilder-Object. You just have to put the desired line first and then append the file-content-String.
No extra temporary file needed.
No. There are no "intra-file shift" operations, only read and write of discrete sizes.
It would be possible to do so by reading a chunk of the file of equal length to what you want to prepend, writing the new content in place of it, reading the later chunk and replacing it with what you read before, and so on, rippling down the to the end of the file.
However, don't do that, because if anything stops (out-of-memory, power outage, rogue thread calling System.exit) in the middle of that process, data will be lost. Use the temporary file instead.
private static void addPreAppnedText(File fileName) {
FileOutputStream fileOutputStream =null;
BufferedReader br = null;
FileReader fr = null;
String newFileName = fileName.getAbsolutePath() + "#";
try {
fileOutputStream = new FileOutputStream(newFileName);
fileOutputStream.write("preappendTextDataHere".getBytes());
fr = new FileReader(fileName);
br = new BufferedReader(fr);
String sCurrentLine;
while ((sCurrentLine = br.readLine()) != null) {
fileOutputStream.write(("\n"+sCurrentLine).getBytes());
}
fileOutputStream.flush();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
try {
fileOutputStream.close();
if (br != null)
br.close();
if (fr != null)
fr.close();
new File(newFileName).renameTo(new File(newFileName.replace("#", "")));
} catch (IOException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

Categories