[CaptainMorgan]

Is there something wrong with both of your codes or am I doing something wrong? They compile, but when ran, end up outputing the text file verbatim and then crashing with a NullPointerException.

Tampa, try this one, albeit a bit naive, and I've left out the substring for you to figure out.

Code:

 import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;

public class demo { 
  public static void main(String args[]) {
    String data = null;
    int recCount = 0;

    try {
      FileReader fr = new FileReader("C:\\Development\\demo.txt");
      BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(fr);
      data = new String();
      
      while ((data = br.readLine()) != null) {
        int length = data.length();
        for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
          System.out.print(data.charAt(i) + " ");
          i++;
        }
        System.out.println("");
        data = br.readLine(); // skips a line, which is 
                              //  naive, seek something better, but
                              //  you get the idea        
        recCount++;
      }

    } catch (IOException e) { 
      System.out.println("IOException error!");
      e.printStackTrace();
    }
  }
}