layout: post

title: "How To Read File Using BufferReader In Java?"

author: gaurav

image: assets/images/2021-01-03/read-file-using-bufferreader.png

categories: [Java, Java File IO]

description: "In this article we will see how to read a file using the `BufferReader` class in Java."

In this article we will see how to read a file using the `BufferReader `class in Java.

`BufferReader` class reads text from a character-input stream. Because of buffering characters it provides an efficient way to read characters, arrays, and lines.

`BufferReader` provides two important methods to read from the file. i.e `read()` and `readLine()`.

You can specify the bufferSize in `BufferReader `constructer. But as [motioned in the docs](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/io/BufferedReader.html),

`BufferReader` `read()` method reads a single character. IT returns the `int` representation of the char in range of 0 to 65535 (0x00-0xffff), or -1 if the end of the stream has been reached.

We can cast `int` value returned by `read()` method to `char` to get the character value.

I have given an example to read a file character by character using the `read()` method of the `BufferReader` class

package com.coderolls;

import java.io.*;

public class BufferReaderReadMethodExample {

public static void main(String[] args) {

BufferedReader bufferedReader = null;

try {

bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("F:\\sample-text.txt"));

int i;

//read each character using read() method and print it

while((i=bufferedReader.read())!=-1){

System.out.print((char)i);

}

}catch (IOException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}finally {

try {

bufferedReader.close();

} catch (IOException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

}

}

}

Output

See [this example on GitHub](https://github.com/coderolls/blogpost-coding-examples/blob/main/java-files-io/BufferReaderReadMethodExample.java).

As specified in the name, this method reads a line of text.

A line is considered to be terminated by any one of a line feed ('\n') or a carriage return ('\r').

The `readLine()` method returns the content of a line as string except the line terminating character (i.e. `\n` or `\r`). Or it will return `null` if the end of the stream has been reached.

I have given below an example to read file line by line using the `readLine()` method

package com.coderolls;

import java.io.*;

public class BufferReaderReadLineMethodExample {

public static void main(String[] args) {

BufferedReader bufferedReader = null;

try {

bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("F:\\sample-text-two-lines.txt"));

String line;

//read each line using readLine() method and print it

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

System.out.println(line);

}

}catch (IOException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}finally {

try {

bufferedReader.close();

} catch (IOException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

}

}

}

Output

Welcome to coderolls.com!

Visit coderolls to read more coding tutorials!

See [this example on GitHub](https://github.com/coderolls/blogpost-coding-examples/blob/main/java-files-io/BufferReaderReadLineMethodExample.java).

I have given below a combine example of the Java `BufferReader` `read()` and `readLine()` method below

package com.coderolls;

import java.io.*;

public class BufferReaderExanple {

public static void main(String[] args) {

BufferedReader bufferedReader = null;

try {

bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("F:\\sample-text-two-lines.txt"));

} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {

// TODO Auto-generated catch block

e.printStackTrace();

}

readFileCharacterByCharacter(bufferedReader);

readFileLineByLine(bufferedReader);

try {

bufferedReader.close();

} catch (IOException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

}

/**

public static void readFileCharacterByCharacter(BufferedReader bufferedReader) {

try {

int i;

//read each character using read() method and print it

while((i=bufferedReader.read())!=-1){

System.out.print((char)i);

}

} catch (IOException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

}

/**

public static void readFileLineByLine(BufferedReader bufferedReader) {

try {

String line;

//read each line using readLine() method and print it

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

System.out.println(line);

}

}catch (IOException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

}

}

See [this example on GitHub](https://github.com/coderolls/blogpost-coding-examples/blob/main/java-files-io/BufferReaderExanple.java).

In Java 1.8 and above you can get a `BufferReader` instance using the `newBufferedReader()` method of the `java.nio.file.Files` class.

You can read file character by character using the `read()` method of the `BufferReader`Class.

`read()` method returns an integer value, you have to cast it to `char` to get character value.

Also, you can read file line by line using the `readLine()` method of the `BufferReader`Class

`readLine()` methods returns the line content as string, except the line terminating character

You can visit my [YouTube channel 'coderolls'](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl31HHUdQbSHOQfc9L-wo3w?view_as=subscriber?sub_confirmation=1) to find more video tutorials.

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