How to read a file in Java?

There are many ways to read a file in Java. The simplest and most common used method is using BufferedReader class.

First of all, let’s create a file and name it as “example.txt” with some dummy text:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec arcu nibh, maximus porttitor diam eu, dapibus vestibulum nulla. Duis et urna et est tempor fermentum sed a arcu. Praesent ut ex tristique eros lobortis faucibus nec in mi. Quisque non erat vel ex ultricies consectetur nec quis ex. Fusce ultricies elementum arcu, et accumsan turpis finibus in. Nunc nibh nunc, finibus et est a, viverra viverra purus. Vestibulum finibus suscipit ligula, id elementum mi porta ut. Phasellus volutpat consequat posuere.

Aliquam erat volutpat. Quisque efficitur tempor commodo. Duis tempus congue ante vehicula congue. Etiam metus risus, gravida sed faucibus sit amet, hendrerit nec leo. Nullam risus massa, finibus non iaculis quis, faucibus sit amet dolor. Maecenas et tristique ante. Fusce tincidunt venenatis dolor, eget egestas lectus scelerisque id. Pellentesque tempus dictum magna, in mattis eros malesuada vitae. Quisque nisi enim, fringilla sit amet consectetur eu, ullamcorper ac turpis. Ut in mi pellentesque, fermentum nulla id, iaculis neque. Fusce non sapien non tellus sollicitudin laoreet ac sit amet enim.

Now let’s create our BufferedReaderExample.java class:

package com.vilbay;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URL;

public class BufferedReaderExample {

    private static final String FILE_NAME = "example.txt";

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        BufferedReader bufferedReader = null;
        FileReader fileReader = null;
        URL path = BufferedReaderExample.class.getResource(FILE_NAME);

        try {

            fileReader = new FileReader(new File(path.getFile()));
            bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(fileReader);

            String currentLine;

            while ((currentLine = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null) {
                System.out.println(currentLine);
            }

        } catch (IOException e) {

            e.printStackTrace();

        } finally {
            try {
                if (bufferedReader != null)
                    bufferedReader.close();
                if (fileReader != null)
                    fileReader.close();

            } catch (IOException ex) {
                ex.printStackTrace();

            }
        }
    }
}

Source code: GitHub