Make BufferedReader start from the middle of a .txt file rather than the beginning?

Question

I have a LONG .txt file that contains almost 6000 lines! Sometimes I need to retrieve the info. in line 5000. Is it possible to start reading from line 5000 rather than sta

Answer 1

As 5000 lines is not so big, and it will do a sequential file access, this simple idea could work:

BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(fileName));
for (int i = 0; i < 5000 && in.ready; in.readLine()) { }
if (in.ready()) {
  // you are at line 5000;
} else {
  // the file is smaller than 5000 lines
}

Another idea is to use the bufferedRead.skip(n) method, but for it every line should have the same length. By example, each line having 100 characters, you will need to do:

int ls = System.getProperty("line.separator").length();
in.skip((100 + ls) * 5000);