How can I read a large text file line by line using Java?

Question

I need to read a large text file of around 5-6 GB line by line using Java.

How can I do this quickly?

Answer 1

In Java 8, there is also an alternative to using Files.lines(). If your input source isn't a file but something more abstract like a Reader or an InputStream, you can stream the lines via the BufferedReaders lines() method.

For example:

try (BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(...)) {
  reader.lines().forEach(line -> processLine(line));
}

will call processLine() for each input line read by the BufferedReader.

Answer 2

Java 9:

try (Stream<String> stream = Files.lines(Paths.get(fileName))) {
    stream.forEach(System.out::println);
}

Answer 3

I usually do the reading routine straightforward:

void readResource(InputStream source) throws IOException {
    BufferedReader stream = null;
    try {
        stream = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(source));
        while (true) {
            String line = stream.readLine();
            if(line == null) {
                break;
            }
            //process line
            System.out.println(line)
        }
    } finally {
        closeQuiet(stream);
    }
}

static void closeQuiet(Closeable closeable) {
    if (closeable != null) {
        try {
            closeable.close();
        } catch (IOException ignore) {
        }
    }
}

Answer 4

In Java 7:

String folderPath = "C:/folderOfMyFile";
Path path = Paths.get(folderPath, "myFileName.csv"); //or any text file eg.: txt, bat, etc
Charset charset = Charset.forName("UTF-8");

try (BufferedReader reader = Files.newBufferedReader(path , charset)) {
  while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null ) {
    //separate all csv fields into string array
    String[] lineVariables = line.split(","); 
  }
} catch (IOException e) {
    System.err.println(e);
}

Answer 5

You can use Scanner class

Scanner sc=new Scanner(file);
sc.nextLine();

Answer 6

Here is a sample with full error handling and supporting charset specification for pre-Java 7. With Java 7 you can use try-with-resources syntax, which makes the code cleaner.

If you just want the default charset you can skip the InputStream and use FileReader.

InputStream ins = null; // raw byte-stream
Reader r = null; // cooked reader
BufferedReader br = null; // buffered for readLine()
try {
    String s;
    ins = new FileInputStream("textfile.txt");
    r = new InputStreamReader(ins, "UTF-8"); // leave charset out for default
    br = new BufferedReader(r);
    while ((s = br.readLine()) != null) {
        System.out.println(s);
    }
}
catch (Exception e)
{
    System.err.println(e.getMessage()); // handle exception
}
finally {
    if (br != null) { try { br.close(); } catch(Throwable t) { /* ensure close happens */ } }
    if (r != null) { try { r.close(); } catch(Throwable t) { /* ensure close happens */ } }
    if (ins != null) { try { ins.close(); } catch(Throwable t) { /* ensure close happens */ } }
}

Here is the Groovy version, with full error handling:

File f = new File("textfile.txt");
f.withReader("UTF-8") { br ->
    br.eachLine { line ->
        println line;
    }
}