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It seems there are different ways to read and write data of files in Java.
I want to read ASCII data from a file. What are the possible ways and their differences?
My favorite way to read a small file is to use a BufferedReader and a StringBuilder. It is very simple and to the point (though not particularly effective, but good enough for most cases):
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("file.txt"));
try {
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
String line = br.readLine();
while (line != null) {
sb.append(line);
sb.append(System.lineSeparator());
line = br.readLine();
}
String everything = sb.toString();
} finally {
br.close();
}
Some has pointed out that after Java 7 you should use try-with-resources (i.e. auto close) features:
try(BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("file.txt"))) {
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
String line = br.readLine();
while (line != null) {
sb.append(line);
sb.append(System.lineSeparator());
line = br.readLine();
}
String everything = sb.toString();
}
When I read strings like this, I usually want to do some string handling per line anyways, so then I go for this implementation.
Though if I want to actually just read a file into a String, I always use Apache Commons IO with the class IOUtils.toString() method. You can have a look at the source here:
http://www.docjar.com/html/api/org/apache/commons/io/IOUtils.java.html
FileInputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream("foo.txt");
try {
String everything = IOUtils.toString(inputStream);
} finally {
inputStream.close();
}
And even simpler with Java 7:
try(FileInputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream("foo.txt")) {
String everything = IOUtils.toString(inputStream);
// do something with everything string
}
ASCII is a TEXT file so you would use Readers for reading. Java also supports reading from a binary file using InputStreams. If the files being read are huge then you would want to use a BufferedReader on top of a FileReader to improve read performance.
Go through this article on how to use a Reader
I'd also recommend you download and read this wonderful (yet free) book called Thinking In Java
In Java 7:
new String(Files.readAllBytes(...))
(docs)
or
Files.readAllLines(...)
(docs)
In Java 8:
Files.lines(..).forEach(...)
(docs)
The easiest way is to use the Scanner class in Java and the FileReader object. Simple example:
Scanner in = new Scanner(new FileReader("filename.txt"));
Scanner has several methods for reading in strings, numbers, etc... You can look for more information on this on the Java documentation page.
For example reading the whole content into a String:
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
while(in.hasNext()) {
sb.append(in.next());
}
in.close();
outString = sb.toString();
Also if you need a specific encoding you can use this instead of FileReader:
new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream(fileUtf8), StandardCharsets.UTF_8)
Here is a simple solution:
String content = new String(Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get("sample.txt")));
Or to read as list:
List<String> content = Files.readAllLines(Paths.get("sample.txt"))
Here's another way to do it without using external libraries:
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
public String readFile(String filename)
{
String content = null;
File file = new File(filename); // For example, foo.txt
FileReader reader = null;
try {
reader = new FileReader(file);
char[] chars = new char[(int) file.length()];
reader.read(chars);
content = new String(chars);
reader.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
if(reader != null){
reader.close();
}
}
return content;
}
I had to benchmark the different ways. I shall comment on my findings but, in short, the fastest way is to use a plain old BufferedInputStream over a FileInputStream. If many files must be read then three threads will reduce the total execution time to roughly half, but adding more threads will progressively degrade performance until making it take three times longer to complete with twenty threads than with just one thread.
The assumption is that you must read a file and do something meaningful with its contents. In the examples here is reading lines from a log and count the ones which contain values that exceed a certain threshold. So I am assuming that the one-liner Java 8 Files.lines(Paths.get("/path/to/file.txt")).map(line -> line.split(";")) is not an option.
I tested on Java 1.8, Windows 7 and both SSD and HDD drives.
I wrote six different implementations:
rawParse: Use BufferedInputStream over a FileInputStream and then cut lines reading byte by byte. This outperformed any other single-thread approach, but it may be very inconvenient for non-ASCII files.
lineReaderParse: Use a BufferedReader over a FileReader, read line by line, split lines by calling String.split(). This is approximatedly 20% slower that rawParse.
lineReaderParseParallel: This is the same as lineReaderParse, but it uses several threads. This is the fastest option overall in all cases.
nioFilesParse: Use java.nio.files.Files.lines()
nioAsyncParse: Use an AsynchronousFileChannel with a completion handler and a thread pool.
nioMemoryMappedParse: Use a memory-mapped file. This is really a bad idea yielding execution times at least three times longer than any other implementation.
These are the average times for reading 204 files of 4 MB each on an quad-core i7 and SSD drive. The files are generated on the fly to avoid disk caching.
rawParse 11.10 sec
lineReaderParse 13.86 sec
lineReaderParseParallel 6.00 sec
nioFilesParse 13.52 sec
nioAsyncParse 16.06 sec
nioMemoryMappedParse 37.68 sec
I found a difference smaller than I expected between running on an SSD or an HDD drive being the SSD approximately 15% faster. This may be because the files are generated on an unfragmented HDD and they are read sequentially, therefore the spinning drive can perform nearly as an SSD.
I was surprised by the low performance of the nioAsyncParse implementation. Either I have implemented something in the wrong way or the multi-thread implementation using NIO and a completion handler performs the same (or even worse) than a single-thread implementation with the java.io API. Moreover the asynchronous parse with a CompletionHandler is much longer in lines of code and tricky to implement correctly than a straight implementation on old streams.
Now the six implementations followed by a class containing them all plus a parametrizable main() method that allows to play with the number of files, file size and concurrency degree. Note that the size of the files varies plus minus 20%. This is to avoid any effect due to all the files being of exactly the same size.
rawParse
public void rawParse(final String targetDir, final int numberOfFiles) throws IOException, ParseException {
overrunCount = 0;
final int dl = (int) ';';
StringBuffer lineBuffer = new StringBuffer(1024);
for (int f=0; f<numberOfFiles; f++) {
File fl = new File(targetDir+filenamePreffix+String.valueOf(f)+".txt");
FileInputStream fin = new FileInputStream(fl);
BufferedInputStream bin = new BufferedInputStream(fin);
int character;
while((character=bin.read())!=-1) {
if (character==dl) {
// Here is where something is done with each line
doSomethingWithRawLine(lineBuffer.toString());
lineBuffer.setLength(0);
}
else {
lineBuffer.append((char) character);
}
}
bin.close();
fin.close();
}
}
public final void doSomethingWithRawLine(String line) throws ParseException {
// What to do for each line
int fieldNumber = 0;
final int len = line.length();
StringBuffer fieldBuffer = new StringBuffer(256);
for (int charPos=0; charPos<len; charPos++) {
char c = line.charAt(charPos);
if (c==DL0) {
String fieldValue = fieldBuffer.toString();
if (fieldValue.length()>0) {
switch (fieldNumber) {
case 0:
Date dt = fmt.parse(fieldValue);
fieldNumber++;
break;
case 1:
double d = Double.parseDouble(fieldValue);
fieldNumber++;
break;
case 2:
int t = Integer.parseInt(fieldValue);
fieldNumber++;
break;
case 3:
if (fieldValue.equals("overrun"))
overrunCount++;
break;
}
}
fieldBuffer.setLength(0);
}
else {
fieldBuffer.append(c);
}
}
}
lineReaderParse
public void lineReaderParse(final String targetDir, final int numberOfFiles) throws IOException, ParseException {
String line;
for (int f=0; f<numberOfFiles; f++) {
File fl = new File(targetDir+filenamePreffix+String.valueOf(f)+".txt");
FileReader frd = new FileReader(fl);
BufferedReader brd = new BufferedReader(frd);
while ((line=brd.readLine())!=null)
doSomethingWithLine(line);
brd.close();
frd.close();
}
}
public final void doSomethingWithLine(String line) throws ParseException {
// Example of what to do for each line
String[] fields = line.split(";");
Date dt = fmt.parse(fields[0]);
double d = Double.parseDouble(fields[1]);
int t = Integer.parseInt(fields[2]);
if (fields[3].equals("overrun"))
overrunCount++;
}
lineReaderParseParallel
public void lineReaderParseParallel(final String targetDir, final int numberOfFiles, final int degreeOfParalelism) throws IOException, ParseException, InterruptedException {
Thread[] pool = new Thread[degreeOfParalelism];
int batchSize = numberOfFiles / degreeOfParalelism;
for (int b=0; b<degreeOfParalelism; b++) {
pool[b] = new LineReaderParseThread(targetDir, b*batchSize, b*batchSize+b*batchSize);
pool[b].start();
}
for (int b=0; b<degreeOfParalelism; b++)
pool[b].join();
}
class LineReaderParseThread extends Thread {
private String targetDir;
private int fileFrom;
private int fileTo;
private DateFormat fmt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
private int overrunCounter = 0;
public LineReaderParseThread(String targetDir, int fileFrom, int fileTo) {
this.targetDir = targetDir;
this.fileFrom = fileFrom;
this.fileTo = fileTo;
}
private void doSomethingWithTheLine(String line) throws ParseException {
String[] fields = line.split(DL);
Date dt = fmt.parse(fields[0]);
double d = Double.parseDouble(fields[1]);
int t = Integer.parseInt(fields[2]);
if (fields[3].equals("overrun"))
overrunCounter++;
}
#Override
public void run() {
String line;
for (int f=fileFrom; f<fileTo; f++) {
File fl = new File(targetDir+filenamePreffix+String.valueOf(f)+".txt");
try {
FileReader frd = new FileReader(fl);
BufferedReader brd = new BufferedReader(frd);
while ((line=brd.readLine())!=null) {
doSomethingWithTheLine(line);
}
brd.close();
frd.close();
} catch (IOException | ParseException ioe) { }
}
}
}
nioFilesParse
public void nioFilesParse(final String targetDir, final int numberOfFiles) throws IOException, ParseException {
for (int f=0; f<numberOfFiles; f++) {
Path ph = Paths.get(targetDir+filenamePreffix+String.valueOf(f)+".txt");
Consumer<String> action = new LineConsumer();
Stream<String> lines = Files.lines(ph);
lines.forEach(action);
lines.close();
}
}
class LineConsumer implements Consumer<String> {
#Override
public void accept(String line) {
// What to do for each line
String[] fields = line.split(DL);
if (fields.length>1) {
try {
Date dt = fmt.parse(fields[0]);
}
catch (ParseException e) {
}
double d = Double.parseDouble(fields[1]);
int t = Integer.parseInt(fields[2]);
if (fields[3].equals("overrun"))
overrunCount++;
}
}
}
nioAsyncParse
public void nioAsyncParse(final String targetDir, final int numberOfFiles, final int numberOfThreads, final int bufferSize) throws IOException, ParseException, InterruptedException {
ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor pool = new ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor(numberOfThreads);
ConcurrentLinkedQueue<ByteBuffer> byteBuffers = new ConcurrentLinkedQueue<ByteBuffer>();
for (int b=0; b<numberOfThreads; b++)
byteBuffers.add(ByteBuffer.allocate(bufferSize));
for (int f=0; f<numberOfFiles; f++) {
consumerThreads.acquire();
String fileName = targetDir+filenamePreffix+String.valueOf(f)+".txt";
AsynchronousFileChannel channel = AsynchronousFileChannel.open(Paths.get(fileName), EnumSet.of(StandardOpenOption.READ), pool);
BufferConsumer consumer = new BufferConsumer(byteBuffers, fileName, bufferSize);
channel.read(consumer.buffer(), 0l, channel, consumer);
}
consumerThreads.acquire(numberOfThreads);
}
class BufferConsumer implements CompletionHandler<Integer, AsynchronousFileChannel> {
private ConcurrentLinkedQueue<ByteBuffer> buffers;
private ByteBuffer bytes;
private String file;
private StringBuffer chars;
private int limit;
private long position;
private DateFormat frmt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
public BufferConsumer(ConcurrentLinkedQueue<ByteBuffer> byteBuffers, String fileName, int bufferSize) {
buffers = byteBuffers;
bytes = buffers.poll();
if (bytes==null)
bytes = ByteBuffer.allocate(bufferSize);
file = fileName;
chars = new StringBuffer(bufferSize);
frmt = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
limit = bufferSize;
position = 0l;
}
public ByteBuffer buffer() {
return bytes;
}
#Override
public synchronized void completed(Integer result, AsynchronousFileChannel channel) {
if (result!=-1) {
bytes.flip();
final int len = bytes.limit();
int i = 0;
try {
for (i = 0; i < len; i++) {
byte by = bytes.get();
if (by=='\n') {
// ***
// The code used to process the line goes here
chars.setLength(0);
}
else {
chars.append((char) by);
}
}
}
catch (Exception x) {
System.out.println(
"Caught exception " + x.getClass().getName() + " " + x.getMessage() +
" i=" + String.valueOf(i) + ", limit=" + String.valueOf(len) +
", position="+String.valueOf(position));
}
if (len==limit) {
bytes.clear();
position += len;
channel.read(bytes, position, channel, this);
}
else {
try {
channel.close();
}
catch (IOException e) {
}
consumerThreads.release();
bytes.clear();
buffers.add(bytes);
}
}
else {
try {
channel.close();
}
catch (IOException e) {
}
consumerThreads.release();
bytes.clear();
buffers.add(bytes);
}
}
#Override
public void failed(Throwable e, AsynchronousFileChannel channel) {
}
};
FULL RUNNABLE IMPLEMENTATION OF ALL CASES
https://github.com/sergiomt/javaiobenchmark/blob/master/FileReadBenchmark.java
Here are the three working and tested methods:
Using BufferedReader
package io;
import java.io.*;
public class ReadFromFile2 {
public static void main(String[] args)throws Exception {
File file = new File("C:\\Users\\pankaj\\Desktop\\test.java");
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
String st;
while((st=br.readLine()) != null){
System.out.println(st);
}
}
}
Using Scanner
package io;
import java.io.File;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class ReadFromFileUsingScanner {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
File file = new File("C:\\Users\\pankaj\\Desktop\\test.java");
Scanner sc = new Scanner(file);
while(sc.hasNextLine()){
System.out.println(sc.nextLine());
}
}
}
Using FileReader
package io;
import java.io.*;
public class ReadingFromFile {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
FileReader fr = new FileReader("C:\\Users\\pankaj\\Desktop\\test.java");
int i;
while ((i=fr.read()) != -1){
System.out.print((char) i);
}
}
}
Read the entire file without a loop using the Scanner class
package io;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class ReadingEntireFileWithoutLoop {
public static void main(String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException {
File file = new File("C:\\Users\\pankaj\\Desktop\\test.java");
Scanner sc = new Scanner(file);
sc.useDelimiter("\\Z");
System.out.println(sc.next());
}
}
The methods within org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils may also be very handy, e.g.:
/**
* Reads the contents of a file line by line to a List
* of Strings using the default encoding for the VM.
*/
static List readLines(File file)
I documented 15 ways to read a file in Java and then tested them for speed with various file sizes - from 1 KB to 1 GB and here are the top three ways to do this:
java.nio.file.Files.readAllBytes()
Tested to work in Java 7, 8, and 9.
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Files;
public class ReadFile_Files_ReadAllBytes {
public static void main(String [] pArgs) throws IOException {
String fileName = "c:\\temp\\sample-10KB.txt";
File file = new File(fileName);
byte [] fileBytes = Files.readAllBytes(file.toPath());
char singleChar;
for(byte b : fileBytes) {
singleChar = (char) b;
System.out.print(singleChar);
}
}
}
java.io.BufferedReader.readLine()
Tested to work in Java 7, 8, 9.
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
public class ReadFile_BufferedReader_ReadLine {
public static void main(String [] args) throws IOException {
String fileName = "c:\\temp\\sample-10KB.txt";
FileReader fileReader = new FileReader(fileName);
try (BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(fileReader)) {
String line;
while((line = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(line);
}
}
}
}
java.nio.file.Files.lines()
This was tested to work in Java 8 and 9 but won't work in Java 7 because of the lambda expression requirement.
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.util.stream.Stream;
public class ReadFile_Files_Lines {
public static void main(String[] pArgs) throws IOException {
String fileName = "c:\\temp\\sample-10KB.txt";
File file = new File(fileName);
try (Stream linesStream = Files.lines(file.toPath())) {
linesStream.forEach(line -> {
System.out.println(line);
});
}
}
}
What do you want to do with the text? Is the file small enough to fit into memory? I would try to find the simplest way to handle the file for your needs. The FileUtils library is very handle for this.
for(String line: FileUtils.readLines("my-text-file"))
System.out.println(line);
Below is a one-liner of doing it in the Java 8 way. Assuming text.txt file is in the root of the project directory of the Eclipse.
Files.lines(Paths.get("text.txt")).collect(Collectors.toList());
The most intuitive method is introduced in Java 11 Files.readString
import java.io.*;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
public class App {
public static void main(String args[]) throws IOException {
String content = Files.readString(Paths.get("D:\\sandbox\\mvn\\my-app\\my-app.iml"));
System.out.print(content);
}
}
PHP has this luxury for decades! ☺
The buffered stream classes are much more performant in practice, so much so that the NIO.2 API includes methods that specifically return these stream classes, in part to encourage you always to use buffered streams in your application.
Here is an example:
Path path = Paths.get("/myfolder/myfile.ext");
try (BufferedReader reader = Files.newBufferedReader(path)) {
// Read from the stream
String currentLine = null;
while ((currentLine = reader.readLine()) != null)
//do your code here
} catch (IOException e) {
// Handle file I/O exception...
}
You can replace this code
BufferedReader reader = Files.newBufferedReader(path);
with
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("/myfolder/myfile.ext"));
I recommend this article to learn the main uses of Java NIO and IO.
Using BufferedReader:
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
BufferedReader br;
try {
br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("/fileToRead.txt"));
try {
String x;
while ( (x = br.readLine()) != null ) {
// Printing out each line in the file
System.out.println(x);
}
}
catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
System.out.println(e);
e.printStackTrace();
}
This is basically the exact same as Jesus Ramos' answer, except with File instead of FileReader plus iteration to step through the contents of the file.
Scanner in = new Scanner(new File("filename.txt"));
while (in.hasNext()) { // Iterates each line in the file
String line = in.nextLine();
// Do something with line
}
in.close(); // Don't forget to close resource leaks
... throws FileNotFoundException
Probably not as fast as with buffered I/O, but quite terse:
String content;
try (Scanner scanner = new Scanner(textFile).useDelimiter("\\Z")) {
content = scanner.next();
}
The \Z pattern tells the Scanner that the delimiter is EOF.
The most simple way to read data from a file in Java is making use of the File class to read the file and the Scanner class to read the content of the file.
public static void main(String args[])throws Exception
{
File f = new File("input.txt");
takeInputIn2DArray(f);
}
public static void takeInputIn2DArray(File f) throws Exception
{
Scanner s = new Scanner(f);
int a[][] = new int[20][20];
for(int i=0; i<20; i++)
{
for(int j=0; j<20; j++)
{
a[i][j] = s.nextInt();
}
}
}
PS: Don't forget to import java.util.*; for Scanner to work.
You can use readAllLines and the join method to get whole file content in one line:
String str = String.join("\n",Files.readAllLines(Paths.get("e:\\text.txt")));
It uses UTF-8 encoding by default, which reads ASCII data correctly.
Also you can use readAllBytes:
String str = new String(Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get("e:\\text.txt")), StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
I think readAllBytes is faster and more precise, because it does not replace new line with \n and also new line may be \r\n. It is depending on your needs which one is suitable.
I don't see it mentioned yet in the other answers so far. But if "Best" means speed, then the new Java I/O (NIO) might provide the fastest preformance, but not always the easiest to figure out for someone learning.
http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/io/file.html
Guava provides a one-liner for this:
import com.google.common.base.Charsets;
import com.google.common.io.Files;
String contents = Files.toString(filePath, Charsets.UTF_8);
Cactoos give you a declarative one-liner:
new TextOf(new File("a.txt")).asString();
This might not be the exact answer to the question. It's just another way of reading a file where you do not explicitly specify the path to your file in your Java code and instead, you read it as a command-line argument.
With the following code,
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.IOException;
public class InputReader{
public static void main(String[] args)throws IOException{
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
String s="";
while((s=br.readLine())!=null){
System.out.println(s);
}
}
}
just go ahead and run it with:
java InputReader < input.txt
This would read the contents of the input.txt and print it to the your console.
You can also make your System.out.println() to write to a specific file through the command line as follows:
java InputReader < input.txt > output.txt
This would read from input.txt and write to output.txt.
For JSF-based Maven web applications, just use ClassLoader and the Resources folder to read in any file you want:
Put any file you want to read in the Resources folder.
Put the Apache Commons IO dependency into your POM:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
<version>1.3.2</version>
</dependency>
Use the code below to read it (e.g. below is reading in a .json file):
String metadata = null;
FileInputStream inputStream;
try {
ClassLoader loader = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader();
inputStream = (FileInputStream) loader
.getResourceAsStream("/metadata.json");
metadata = IOUtils.toString(inputStream);
inputStream.close();
}
catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
catch (IOException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
return metadata;
You can do the same for text files, .properties files, XSD schemas, etc.
try {
File f = new File("filename.txt");
Scanner r = new Scanner(f);
while (r.hasNextLine()) {
String data = r.nextLine();
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(data);
}
r.close();
} catch (FileNotFoundException ex) {
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog("Error occurred");
ex.printStackTrace();
}
Use Java kiss if this is about simplicity of structure:
import static kiss.API.*;
class App {
void run() {
String line;
try (Close in = inOpen("file.dat")) {
while ((line = readLine()) != null) {
println(line);
}
}
}
}
import java.util.stream.Stream;
import java.nio.file.*;
import java.io.*;
class ReadFile {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String filename = "Test.txt";
try(Stream<String> stream = Files.lines(Paths.get(filename))) {
stream.forEach(System.out:: println);
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
Just use java 8 Stream.
In case you have a large file you can use Apache Commons IO to process the file iteratively without exhausting the available memory.
try (LineIterator it = FileUtils.lineIterator(theFile, "UTF-8")) {
while (it.hasNext()) {
String line = it.nextLine();
// do something with line
}
}
try (Stream<String> stream = Files.lines(Paths.get(String.valueOf(new File("yourFile.txt"))))) {
stream.forEach(System.out::println);
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
new File(<path_name>)
Creates a new File instance by converting the given pathname string into an abstract pathname. If the given string is the empty string, then the result is the empty abstract pathname.
Params:
pathname – A pathname string
Throws:
NullPointerException – If the pathname argument is null
Files.lines returns a stream of String
Stream<String> stream = Files.lines(Paths.get(String.valueOf(new File("yourFile.txt"))))
can throw nullPointerExcetion , FileNotFoundException so, keepint it inside try will take care of Exception in runtime
stream.forEach(System.out::println);
This is used to iterate over the stream and print in console
If you have different use case you can provide your custome function to manipulate the stream of lines
My new favorite approach to simply read a whole text file from a BufferedReader input goes:
String text = input.lines().collect(Collectors.joining(System.lineSeparator())));
This will read the whole file by adding new line (lineSeparator) behind each line. Without the separator it would join all lines together as one.
This appears to have existed since Java 8.
For Android developers ending up here (who use Kotlin):
val myFileUrl = object{}.javaClass.getResource("/vegetables.txt")
val text = myFileUrl.readText() // Not recommended for huge files
println(text)
Other solution:
val myFileUrl = object{}.javaClass.getResource("/vegetables.txt")
val file = File(myFileUrl.toURI())
val lines = file.readLines() // Not recommended for huge files
lines.forEach(::println)
Another good solution which can be used for huge files as well:
val myFileUrl = object{}.javaClass.getResource("/vegetables.txt")
val file = File(myFileUrl.toURI())
file
.bufferedReader()
.lineSequence()
.forEach(::println)
Or:
val myFileUrl = object{}.javaClass.getResource("/vegetables.txt")
val file = File(myFileUrl.toURI())
file.useLines { lines ->
lines.forEach(::println)
}
Notes:
The vegetables.txt file should be in your classpath (for example, in src/main/resources directory)
The above solutions all treat the file encodings as UTF-8 by default. You can specify your desired encoding as the argument for the functions.
The above solutions do not need any further action like closing the files or readers. They are automatically taken care of by the Kotlin standard library.
In Java, is there any method to read a particular line from a file? For example, read line 32 or any other line number.
For small files:
String line32 = Files.readAllLines(Paths.get("file.txt")).get(32)
For large files:
try (Stream<String> lines = Files.lines(Paths.get("file.txt"))) {
line32 = lines.skip(31).findFirst().get();
}
Unless you have previous knowledge about the lines in the file, there's no way to directly access the 32nd line without reading the 31 previous lines.
That's true for all languages and all modern file systems.
So effectively you'll simply read lines until you've found the 32nd one.
Not that I know of, but what you could do is loop through the first 31 lines doing nothing using the readline() function of BufferedReader
FileInputStream fs= new FileInputStream("someFile.txt");
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(fs));
for(int i = 0; i < 31; ++i)
br.readLine();
String lineIWant = br.readLine();
Joachim is right on, of course, and an alternate implementation to Chris' (for small files only because it loads the entire file) might be to use commons-io from Apache (though arguably you might not want to introduce a new dependency just for this, if you find it useful for other stuff too though, it could make sense).
For example:
String line32 = (String) FileUtils.readLines(file).get(31);
http://commons.apache.org/io/api-release/org/apache/commons/io/FileUtils.html#readLines(java.io.File, java.lang.String)
You may try indexed-file-reader (Apache License 2.0). The class IndexedFileReader has a method called readLines(int from, int to) which returns a SortedMap whose key is the line number and the value is the line that was read.
Example:
File file = new File("src/test/resources/file.txt");
reader = new IndexedFileReader(file);
lines = reader.readLines(6, 10);
assertNotNull("Null result.", lines);
assertEquals("Incorrect length.", 5, lines.size());
assertTrue("Incorrect value.", lines.get(6).startsWith("[6]"));
assertTrue("Incorrect value.", lines.get(7).startsWith("[7]"));
assertTrue("Incorrect value.", lines.get(8).startsWith("[8]"));
assertTrue("Incorrect value.", lines.get(9).startsWith("[9]"));
assertTrue("Incorrect value.", lines.get(10).startsWith("[10]"));
The above example reads a text file composed of 50 lines in the following format:
[1] The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog ODD
[2] The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog EVEN
Disclamer: I wrote this library
Although as said in other answers, it is not possible to get to the exact line without knowing the offset (pointer) before. So, I've achieved this by creating an temporary index file which would store the offset values of every line. If the file is small enough, you could just store the indexes (offset) in memory without needing a separate file for it.
The offsets can be calculated by using the RandomAccessFile
RandomAccessFile raf = new RandomAccessFile("myFile.txt","r");
//above 'r' means open in read only mode
ArrayList<Integer> arrayList = new ArrayList<Integer>();
String cur_line = "";
while((cur_line=raf.readLine())!=null)
{
arrayList.add(raf.getFilePointer());
}
//Print the 32 line
//Seeks the file to the particular location from where our '32' line starts
raf.seek(raf.seek(arrayList.get(31));
System.out.println(raf.readLine());
raf.close();
Also visit the Java docs on RandomAccessFile for more information:
Complexity: This is O(n) as it reads the entire file once. Please be aware for the memory requirements. If it's too big to be in memory, then make a temporary file that stores the offsets instead of ArrayList as shown above.
Note: If all you want in '32' line, you just have to call the readLine() also available through other classes '32' times. The above approach is useful if you want to get the a specific line (based on line number of course) multiple times.
Another way.
try (BufferedReader reader = Files.newBufferedReader(
Paths.get("file.txt"), StandardCharsets.UTF_8)) {
List<String> line = reader.lines()
.skip(31)
.limit(1)
.collect(Collectors.toList());
line.stream().forEach(System.out::println);
}
No, unless in that file format the line lengths are pre-determined (e.g. all lines with a fixed length), you'll have to iterate line by line to count them.
In Java 8,
For small files:
String line = Files.readAllLines(Paths.get("file.txt")).get(n);
For large files:
String line;
try (Stream<String> lines = Files.lines(Paths.get("file.txt"))) {
line = lines.skip(n).findFirst().get();
}
In Java 7
String line;
try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("file.txt"))) {
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
br.readLine();
line = br.readLine();
}
Source: Reading nth line from file
If you are talking about a text file, then there is really no way to do this without reading all the lines that precede it - After all, lines are determined by the presence of a newline, so it has to be read.
Use a stream that supports readline, and just read the first X-1 lines and dump the results, then process the next one.
It works for me:
I have combined the answer of
Reading a simple text file
But instead of return a String I am returning a LinkedList of Strings. Then I can select the line that I want.
public static LinkedList<String> readFromAssets(Context context, String filename) throws IOException {
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(context.getAssets().open(filename)));
LinkedList<String>linkedList = new LinkedList<>();
// do reading, usually loop until end of file reading
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
String mLine = reader.readLine();
while (mLine != null) {
linkedList.add(mLine);
sb.append(mLine); // process line
mLine = reader.readLine();
}
reader.close();
return linkedList;
}
Use this code:
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
public class FileWork
{
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
String line = Files.readAllLines(Paths.get("D:/abc.txt")).get(1);
System.out.println(line);
}
}
You can use LineNumberReader instead of BufferedReader. Go through the api. You can find setLineNumber and getLineNumber methods.
You can also take a look at LineNumberReader, subclass of BufferedReader. Along with the readline method, it also has setter/getter methods to access line number. Very useful to keep track of the number of lines read, while reading data from file.
public String readLine(int line){
FileReader tempFileReader = null;
BufferedReader tempBufferedReader = null;
try { tempFileReader = new FileReader(textFile);
tempBufferedReader = new BufferedReader(tempFileReader);
} catch (Exception e) { }
String returnStr = "ERROR";
for(int i = 0; i < line - 1; i++){
try { tempBufferedReader.readLine(); } catch (Exception e) { }
}
try { returnStr = tempBufferedReader.readLine(); } catch (Exception e) { }
return returnStr;
}
you can use the skip() function to skip the lines from begining.
public static void readFile(String filePath, long lineNum) {
List<String> list = new ArrayList<>();
long totalLines, startLine = 0;
try (Stream<String> lines = Files.lines(Paths.get(filePath))) {
totalLines = Files.lines(Paths.get(filePath)).count();
startLine = totalLines - lineNum;
// Stream<String> line32 = lines.skip(((startLine)+1));
list = lines.skip(startLine).collect(Collectors.toList());
// lines.forEach(list::add);
} catch (IOException e1) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e1.printStackTrace();
}
list.forEach(System.out::println);
}
EASY WAY - Reading a line using line number.
Let's say Line number starts from 1 till null .
public class TextFileAssignmentOct {
private void readData(int rowNum, BufferedReader br) throws IOException {
int n=1; //Line number starts from 1
String row;
while((row=br.readLine()) != null) { // Reads every line
if (n == rowNum) { // When Line number matches with which you want to read
System.out.println(row);
}
n++; //This increments Line number
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
File f = new File("../JavaPractice/FileRead.txt");
FileReader fr = new FileReader(f);
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(fr);
TextFileAssignmentOct txf = new TextFileAssignmentOct();
txf.readData(4, br); //Read a Specific Line using Line number and Passing buffered reader
}
}
for a text file you can use an integer with a loop to help you get the number of the line, don't forget to import the classes we are using in this example
File myObj = new File("C:\\Users\\LENOVO\\Desktop\\test.txt");//path of the file
FileReader fr = new FileReader(myObj);
fr.read();
BufferedReader bf = new BufferedReader(fr); //BufferedReader of the FileReader fr
String line = bf.readLine();
int lineNumber = 0;
while (line != null) {
lineNumber = lineNumber + 1;
if(lineNumber == 7)
{
//show line
System.out.println("line: " + lineNumber + " has :" + line);
break;
}
//lecture de la prochaine ligne, reading next
line = bf.readLine();
}
They are all wrong I just wrote this in about 10 seconds.
With this I managed to just call the object.getQuestion("linenumber") in the main method to return whatever line I want.
public class Questions {
File file = new File("Question2Files/triviagame1.txt");
public Questions() {
}
public String getQuestion(int numLine) throws IOException {
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
String line = "";
for(int i = 0; i < numLine; i++) {
line = br.readLine();
}
return line; }}
I need help trying to read two files that have the census from 2010 and 2000. I have to read both files and then find out the population growth between those two files. I keep getting null for ever single state. I know that I have null for inLine1 and inLine2.
The file looks like this
Alabama,4779736
Alaska,710231
Arizona,6392017
Arkansas,2915918
Code:
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.io.*;
public class pa10
{
public static void main(String[] args, char[] inLine2, char[] inLine1)
throws java.io.IOException
{
String fileName1 = "Census2000growth.txt";
String fileName2 = "Census2010growth.txt";
int i;
File f = new File("Census2010growth.txt");
if(!f.exists()) {
System.out.println( "file does not exist ");
}
Scanner infile = new Scanner(f);
infile.useDelimiter ("[\t|,|\n|\r]+"); //create a delimiter
final int MAX = 51;
int [] myarray = new int [MAX];
String[] statearray = new String[MAX];
int fillsize;
// set up input stream1
FileReader fr1 = new
FileReader(fileName1);
// buffer the input stream
BufferedReader br1 =
new BufferedReader(fr1);
// set up input stream2
FileReader fr2 = new
FileReader(fileName2);
// buffer the input stream
BufferedReader br2 =
new BufferedReader(fr2);
// read and display1
String buffer1 = "";
ArrayList<String> firstFile1 = new ArrayList<String>();
while ((buffer1 = br1.readLine()) != null) {
firstFile1.add(buffer1);
System.out.println(inLine1); // display the line
}
br1.close();
//Now read the second file or make for this separate method
// read and display2
String buffer2 = "";
ArrayList<String> firstFile2 = new ArrayList<String>();
while ((buffer2 = br2.readLine()) != null) {
firstFile2.add(buffer2);
System.out.println(inLine2); // display the line
}
br2.close();
//Read all the lines in array or list
//After that you can calculate them.
}
}
Read the BufferedReader documentation. Your file isn't formatted with the types of line separators it is expecting. I suggest using a Scanner and setting the line separator to the appropriate pattern, or using String.split
You have two different variables, buffer1 and inline1. Since you never set the value of inline1, it will always be null.
This question already has answers here:
Java: Reading a file into an array
(5 answers)
Closed 1 year ago.
I have a text file like this :
abc def jhi
klm nop qrs
tuv wxy zzz
I want to have a string array like :
String[] arr = {"abc def jhi","klm nop qrs","tuv wxy zzz"}
I've tried :
try
{
FileInputStream fstream_school = new FileInputStream("text1.txt");
DataInputStream data_input = new DataInputStream(fstream_school);
BufferedReader buffer = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(data_input));
String str_line;
while ((str_line = buffer.readLine()) != null)
{
str_line = str_line.trim();
if ((str_line.length()!=0))
{
String[] itemsSchool = str_line.split("\t");
}
}
}
catch (Exception e)
{
// Catch exception if any
System.err.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
}
Anyone help me please....
All answer would be appreciated...
If you use Java 7 it can be done in two lines thanks to the Files#readAllLines method:
List<String> lines = Files.readAllLines(yourFile, charset);
String[] arr = lines.toArray(new String[lines.size()]);
Use a BufferedReader to read the file, read each line using readLine as strings, and put them in an ArrayList on which you call toArray at end of loop.
Based on your input you are almost there. You missed the point in your loop where to keep each line read from the file. As you don't a priori know the total lines in the file, use a collection (dynamically allocated size) to get all the contents and then convert it to an array of String (as this is your desired output).
Something like this:
String[] arr= null;
List<String> itemsSchool = new ArrayList<String>();
try
{
FileInputStream fstream_school = new FileInputStream("text1.txt");
DataInputStream data_input = new DataInputStream(fstream_school);
BufferedReader buffer = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(data_input));
String str_line;
while ((str_line = buffer.readLine()) != null)
{
str_line = str_line.trim();
if ((str_line.length()!=0))
{
itemsSchool.add(str_line);
}
}
arr = (String[])itemsSchool.toArray(new String[itemsSchool.size()]);
}
Then the output (arr) would be:
{"abc def jhi","klm nop qrs","tuv wxy zzz"}
This is not the optimal solution. Other more clever answers have already be given. This is only a solution for your current approach.
This is my code to generate random emails creating an array from a text file.
import java.io.*;
public class Generator {
public static void main(String[]args){
try {
long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
String[] firstNames = new String[4945];
String[] lastNames = new String[88799];
String[] emailProvider ={"google.com","yahoo.com","hotmail.com","onet.pl","outlook.com","aol.mail","proton.mail","icloud.com"};
String firstName;
String lastName;
int counter0 = 0;
int counter1 = 0;
int generate = 1000000;//number of emails to generate
BufferedReader firstReader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("firstNames.txt"));
BufferedReader lastReader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("lastNames.txt"));
PrintWriter write = new PrintWriter(new FileWriter("emails.txt", false));
while ((firstName = firstReader.readLine()) != null) {
firstName = firstName.toLowerCase();
firstNames[counter0] = firstName;
counter0++;
}
while((lastName= lastReader.readLine()) !=null){
lastName = lastName.toLowerCase();
lastNames[counter1]=lastName;
counter1++;
}
for(int i=0;i<generate;i++) {
write.println(firstNames[(int)(Math.random()*4945)]
+'.'+lastNames[(int)(Math.random()*88799)]+'#'+emailProvider[(int)(Math.random()*emailProvider.length)]);
}
write.close();
long end = System.currentTimeMillis();
long time = end-start;
System.out.println("it took "+time+"ms to generate "+generate+" unique emails");
}
catch(IOException ex){
System.out.println("Wrong input");
}
}
}
You can read file line by line using some input stream or scanner and than store that line in String Array.. A sample code will be..
File file = new File("data.txt");
try {
//
// Create a new Scanner object which will read the data
// from the file passed in. To check if there are more
// line to read from it we check by calling the
// scanner.hasNextLine() method. We then read line one
// by one till all line is read.
//
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(file);
while (scanner.hasNextLine()) {
String line = scanner.nextLine();
//store this line to string [] here
System.out.println(line);
}
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(InputStream);//Get File Input stream here
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
while (scanner.hasNextLine()) {
builder.append(scanner.nextLine());
builder.append(" ");//Additional empty space needs to be added
}
String strings[] = builder.toString().split(" ");
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(strings));
Output :
[abc, def, jhi, klm, nop, qrs, tuv, wxy, zzz]
You can read more about scanner here
You can use the readLine function to read the lines in a file and add it to the array.
Example :
File file = new File("abc.txt");
FileInputStream fin = new FileInputStream(file);
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(fin);
List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
while((String str = reader.readLine())!=null){
list.add(str);
}
//convert the list to String array
String[] strArr = Arrays.toArray(list);
The above array contains your required output.
I have read a file into a String. The file contains various names, one name per line. Now the problem is that I want those names in a String array.
For that I have written the following code:
String [] names = fileString.split("\n"); // fileString is the string representation of the file
But I am not getting the desired results and the array obtained after splitting the string is of length 1. It means that the "fileString" doesn't have "\n" character but the file has this "\n" character.
So How to get around this problem?
What about using Apache Commons (Commons IO and Commons Lang)?
String[] lines = StringUtils.split(FileUtils.readFileToString(new File("...")), '\n');
The problem is not with how you're splitting the string; that bit is correct.
You have to review how you are reading the file to the string. You need something like this:
private String readFileAsString(String filePath) throws IOException {
StringBuffer fileData = new StringBuffer();
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(
new FileReader(filePath));
char[] buf = new char[1024];
int numRead=0;
while((numRead=reader.read(buf)) != -1){
String readData = String.valueOf(buf, 0, numRead);
fileData.append(readData);
}
reader.close();
return fileData.toString();
}
Particularly i love this one using the java.nio.file package also described here.
You can optionally include the Charset as a second argument in the String constructor.
String content = new String(Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get("/path/to/file")));
Cool huhhh!
As suggested by Garrett Rowe and Stan James you can use java.util.Scanner:
try (Scanner s = new Scanner(file).useDelimiter("\\Z")) {
String contents = s.next();
}
or
try (Scanner s = new Scanner(file).useDelimiter("\\n")) {
while(s.hasNext()) {
String line = s.next();
}
}
This code does not have external dependencies.
WARNING: you should specify the charset encoding as the second parameter of the Scanner's constructor. In this example I am using the platform's default, but this is most certainly wrong.
Here is an example of how to use java.util.Scanner with correct resource and error handling:
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.util.Iterator;
class TestScanner {
public static void main(String[] args)
throws FileNotFoundException {
File file = new File(args[0]);
System.out.println(getFileContents(file));
processFileLines(file, new LineProcessor() {
#Override
public void process(int lineNumber, String lineContents) {
System.out.println(lineNumber + ": " + lineContents);
}
});
}
static String getFileContents(File file)
throws FileNotFoundException {
try (Scanner s = new Scanner(file).useDelimiter("\\Z")) {
return s.next();
}
}
static void processFileLines(File file, LineProcessor lineProcessor)
throws FileNotFoundException {
try (Scanner s = new Scanner(file).useDelimiter("\\n")) {
for (int lineNumber = 1; s.hasNext(); ++lineNumber) {
lineProcessor.process(lineNumber, s.next());
}
}
}
static interface LineProcessor {
void process(int lineNumber, String lineContents);
}
}
You could read your file into a List instead of a String and then convert to an array:
//Setup a BufferedReader here
List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
String line = reader.readLine();
while (line != null) {
list.add(line);
line = reader.readLine();
}
String[] arr = list.toArray(new String[0]);
There is no built-in method in Java which can read an entire file. So you have the following options:
Use a non-standard library method, such as Apache Commons, see the code example in romaintaz's answer.
Loop around some read method (e.g. FileInputStream.read, which reads bytes, or FileReader.read, which reads chars; both read to a preallocated array). Both classes use system calls, so you'll have to speed them up with bufering (BufferedInputStream or BufferedReader) if you are reading just a small amount of data (say, less than 4096 bytes) at a time.
Loop around BufferedReader.readLine. There has a fundamental problem that it discards the information whether there was a '\n' at the end of the file -- so e.g. it is unable to distinguish an empty file from a file containing just a newline.
I'd use this code:
// charsetName can be null to use the default charset.
public static String readFileAsString(String fileName, String charsetName)
throws java.io.IOException {
java.io.InputStream is = new java.io.FileInputStream(fileName);
try {
final int bufsize = 4096;
int available = is.available();
byte[] data = new byte[available < bufsize ? bufsize : available];
int used = 0;
while (true) {
if (data.length - used < bufsize) {
byte[] newData = new byte[data.length << 1];
System.arraycopy(data, 0, newData, 0, used);
data = newData;
}
int got = is.read(data, used, data.length - used);
if (got <= 0) break;
used += got;
}
return charsetName != null ? new String(data, 0, used, charsetName)
: new String(data, 0, used);
} finally {
is.close();
}
}
The code above has the following advantages:
It's correct: it reads the whole file, not discarding any byte.
It lets you specify the character set (encoding) the file uses.
It's fast (no matter how many newlines the file contains).
It doesn't waste memory (no matter how many newlines the file contains).
FileReader fr=new FileReader(filename);
BufferedReader br=new BufferedReader(fr);
String strline;
String arr[]=new String[10];//10 is the no. of strings
while((strline=br.readLine())!=null)
{
arr[i++]=strline;
}
The simplest solution for reading a text file line by line and putting the results into an array of strings without using third party libraries would be this:
ArrayList<String> names = new ArrayList<String>();
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(new File("names.txt"));
while(scanner.hasNextLine()) {
names.add(scanner.nextLine());
}
scanner.close();
String[] namesArr = (String[]) names.toArray();
I always use this way:
String content = "";
String line;
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(...));
while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null)
{
content += "\n" + line;
}
// Cut of the first newline;
content = content.substring(1);
// Close the reader
reader.close();
You can also use java.nio.file.Files to read an entire file into a String List then you can convert it to an array etc. Assuming a String variable named filePath, the following 2 lines will do that:
List<String> strList = Files.readAllLines(Paths.get(filePath), Charset.defaultCharset());
String[] strarray = strList.toArray(new String[0]);
A simpler (without loops), but less correct way, is to read everything to a byte array:
FileInputStream is = new FileInputStream(file);
byte[] b = new byte[(int) file.length()];
is.read(b, 0, (int) file.length());
String contents = new String(b);
Also note that this has serious performance issues.
If you have only InputStream, you can use InputStreamReader.
SmbFileInputStream in = new SmbFileInputStream("smb://host/dir/file.ext");
InputStreamReader r=new InputStreamReader(in);
char buf[] = new char[5000];
int count=r.read(buf);
String s=String.valueOf(buf, 0, count);
You can add cycle and StringBuffer if needed.
You can try Cactoos:
import org.cactoos.io.TextOf;
import java.io.File;
new TextOf(new File("a.txt")).asString().split("\n")
Fixed Version of #Anoyz's answer:
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.File;
public class App {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
File f = new File("file.txt");
long fileSize = f.length();
String file = "test.txt";
FileInputStream is = new FileInputStream("file.txt");
byte[] b = new byte[(int) f.length()];
is.read(b, 0, (int) f.length());
String contents = new String(b);
}
}