Reading Files

Reading files is a common task in Java. This tutorial will teach you how to read data from files using different methods.

Using BufferedReader

The BufferedReader class is used to read text from an input stream:

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try (BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("example.txt"))) {
            String line;
            while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
                System.out.println(line);
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}
      

Using Scanner

The Scanner class can also be used to read data from a file:

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.util.Scanner;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
            File file = new File("example.txt");
            Scanner scanner = new Scanner(file);
            while (scanner.hasNextLine()) {
                System.out.println(scanner.nextLine());
            }
            scanner.close();
        } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}
      

Using Files Class

The Files class provides methods for reading all lines of a file into a list:

import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
import java.util.List;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
            List lines = Files.readAllLines(Paths.get("example.txt"));
            for (String line : lines) {
                System.out.println(line);
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}
      

Continue exploring our intermediate tutorials to learn more about Java programming.