Java - Missing return statement

Question

I get an error - \"missing return statement\" - on line 26, which in this case is the last curly bracket in the code. I know that it literally means that I have to return somewh

Answer 1

If you just want to print the file as you are doing right now, change the return type to void as follows:

public void OpenFile() throws IOException {

Otherwise, since you are just opening and reading in a text file, you might want another String variable that you append the file's lines to and then return, as opposed to a String[]. Maybe something like this:

public String openFile(String fileName) throws IOException {

    String output = "";
    FileReader fr = new FileReader(fileName);
    BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(fr);

    try {
        while (br.ready()) {
            String line = br.readLine();
            output += line + "\n";
        }
    } catch (IOException e) {
        System.err.println("Error - IOException!");
    }
    return output;
}