Java : How To Read a Complete Text File into a String

One of the most overwhelming topics for any Java newbie is the File I/O and a simple reading of a file which seems so easy in C becomes cryptic with so many classes involved. I plan to document all those different ways to Read A Complete File into a String.

Java Code(s) for Reading An Entire Text File into a String

1. Using the Scanner class.

   
   

   public class ReadEntireFileIntoAString {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException {
   
     String entireFileText = new Scanner(new File("readme.txt"))
       .useDelimiter("\\A").next();
   
     System.out.println(entireFileText);
    }
   }
   

2. Using the BufferedReader to read line by line.

   But remember, we need to add a "\n" at the end, since readline strips the new line at the end
   

   public class ReadFileIntoAStringLineByLine {
   
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
   
     BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("readme.txt"));
   
     StringBuffer stringBuffer = new StringBuffer();
     String line = null;
   
     while((line =bufferedReader.readLine())!=null){
   
      stringBuffer.append(line).append("\n");
     }
     
     System.out.println(stringBuffer);
    }
   }
   

3. Using the barebones  FileReader to read character by character using the read() method.

   We are avoiding an extra wrapper, the BufferedReader that offers us more tools, one of which we saw above. If you are using any other character set other than the default, use an InputSreamReader or a FileInputStream  to set the encoding.
   

   public class ReadEntireFileIntoAStringCharByChar {
   
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
     FileReader fileReader = new FileReader("readme.txt");
      
     String fileContents = "";
   
     int i ;
   
     while((i =  fileReader.read())!=-1){
      char ch = (char)i;
   
      fileContents = fileContents + ch; 
     }
   
     System.out.println(fileContents);
    }
   }

4. The most Beautiful of them all! The Apache CommonsIO library's FileUtils class.

   However, the tradeoff is that you need to download the library and add it to your classpath. It also has overloaded versions of the readFileToString method with the charset encoding. Do check it out!

    import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;
    try {
       String str = FileUtils.readFileToString(new File("test.txt"));
       System.out.println(str);
     } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
   

Any more?? Please tell me, I'll add it to the list above and into my brain. Thanks for reading!!