Read data from a text file using Java

Question

I need to read a text file line by line using Java. I use available() method of FileInputStream to check and loop over the file. But while reading, the loop terminates after the line before the last one. i.e., if the file has 10 lines, the loop reads only the first 9 lines. Snippet used :

while(fis.available() > 0)
{
    char c = (char)fis.read();
    .....
    .....
}

Answer 1

You should not use available(). It gives no guarantees what so ever. From the API docs of available():

Returns an estimate of the number of bytes that can be read (or skipped over) from this input stream without blocking by the next invocation of a method for this input stream.

You would probably want to use something like

try {
    BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("infilename"));
    String str;
    while ((str = in.readLine()) != null)
        process(str);
    in.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
}

(taken from http://www.exampledepot.com/egs/java.io/ReadLinesFromFile.html)

Answer 2

How about using Scanner? I think using Scanner is easier

     private static void readFile(String fileName) {
       try {
         File file = new File(fileName);
         Scanner scanner = new Scanner(file);
         while (scanner.hasNextLine()) {
           System.out.println(scanner.nextLine());
         }
         scanner.close();
       } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
         e.printStackTrace();
       }
     }

Read more about Java IO here

Answer 3

If you want to read line-by-line, use a BufferedReader. It has a readLine() method which returns the line as a String, or null if the end of the file has been reached. So you can do something like:

BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(fis));
String line;
while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
 // Do something with line
}

(Note that this code doesn't handle exceptions or close the stream, etc)

Answer 4

String file = "/path/to/your/file.txt";

try {

    BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream(file)));
    String line;
    // Uncomment the line below if you want to skip the fist line (e.g if headers)
    // line = br.readLine();

    while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {

        // do something with line

    }
    br.close();

} catch (IOException e) {
    System.out.println("ERROR: unable to read file " + file);
    e.printStackTrace();   
}

Answer 5

You can try FileUtils from org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils, try downloading jar from here

and you can use the following method: FileUtils.readFileToString("yourFileName");

Hope it helps you..

Answer 6

The reason your code skipped the last line was because you put fis.available() > 0 instead of fis.available() >= 0

Answer 7

In Java 8 you could easily turn your text file into a List of Strings with streams by using Files.lines and collect:

private List<String> loadFile() {
    URI uri = null;
    try {
        uri = ClassLoader.getSystemResource("example.txt").toURI();
    } catch (URISyntaxException e) {
        LOGGER.error("Failed to load file.", e);
    }
    List<String> list = null;
    try (Stream<String> lines = Files.lines(Paths.get(uri))) {
        list = lines.collect(Collectors.toList());
    } catch (IOException e) {
        LOGGER.error("Failed to load file.", e);
    }
    return list;
}

Answer 8

//The way that I read integer numbers from a file is...

import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;

public class Practice
{
    public static void main(String [] args) throws IOException
    {
        Scanner input = new Scanner(new File("cards.txt"));

        int times = input.nextInt();

        for(int i = 0; i < times; i++)
        {
            int numbersFromFile = input.nextInt();
            System.out.println(numbersFromFile);
        }




    }
}

Answer 9

user scanner it should work

         Scanner scanner = new Scanner(file);
         while (scanner.hasNextLine()) {
           System.out.println(scanner.nextLine());
         }
         scanner.close(); 

Answer 10

public class ReadFileUsingFileInputStream {

/**
* @param args
*/
static int ch;

public static void main(String[] args) {
    File file = new File("C://text.txt");
    StringBuffer stringBuffer = new StringBuffer("");
    try {
        FileInputStream fileInputStream = new FileInputStream(file);
        try {
            while((ch = fileInputStream.read())!= -1){
                stringBuffer.append((char)ch);  
            }
        }
        catch (IOException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
    catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    System.out.println("File contents :");
    System.out.println(stringBuffer);
    }
}

Answer 11

Try this just a little search in Google

import java.io.*;
class FileRead 
{
   public static void main(String args[])
  {
      try{
    // Open the file that is the first 
    // command line parameter
    FileInputStream fstream = new FileInputStream("textfile.txt");
    // Get the object of DataInputStream
    DataInputStream in = new DataInputStream(fstream);
        BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));
    String strLine;
    //Read File Line By Line
    while ((strLine = br.readLine()) != null)   {
      // Print the content on the console
      System.out.println (strLine);
    }
    //Close the input stream
    in.close();
    }catch (Exception e){//Catch exception if any
      System.err.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
    }
  }
}

Answer 12

Try using java.io.BufferedReader like this.

java.io.BufferedReader br = new java.io.BufferedReader(new java.io.InputStreamReader(new java.io.FileInputStream(fileName)));
String line = null;
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null){
//Process the line
}
br.close();

Answer 13

Yes, buffering should be used for better performance. Use BufferedReader OR byte[] to store your temp data.

thanks.

Answer 14

public class FilesStrings {

public static void main(String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException, IOException {
    FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream("input.txt");
    InputStreamReader input = new InputStreamReader(fis);
    BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(input);
    String data;
    String result = new String();

    while ((data = br.readLine()) != null) {
        result = result.concat(data + " ");
    }

    System.out.println(result);

Answer 15

    File file = new File("Path");

    FileReader reader = new FileReader(file);  

    while((ch=reader.read())!=-1)
    {
        System.out.print((char)ch);
    }

This worked for me

Answer 16

Simple code for reading file in JAVA:

import java.io.*;

class ReadData
{
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        FileReader fr = new FileReader(new File("<put your file path here>"));
        while(true)
        {
            int n=fr.read();
            if(n>-1)
            {
                char ch=(char)fr.read();
                System.out.print(ch);
            }
        }
    }
}