Tokenizing textfile content into several Tables (Float[])

Hi,

I have a file (selected via JFileChooser), where content is
...<some unnecessary text>...
A B C
0.004 0.344 0.124
5.003 0.412 8.299
1.993 0.234 5.3333
0.234 ...... ......
.....
.....<some unnecessary text>

Number of whitespaces between various "numbers" (tokens) is NOT fixed but in each line I have 3 tokens.

I want to create 2 tables:
- Float[] tblA - containing all tokens from "A" column and
- Float[] tblB - for "B" column.

I was thnking about StreamTokenizer but also found out class Scanner and String method split(). Anyway, I cannot obtain the result I want in any of these methods.
Can you tell me the most effective way to:
- cut unnecessary part
- convert tokens from file into 2 tables (parsed into Float)

I would suggest to use a BufferedReader for obtaining the values. This would allow you to read in the lines of the text where you could skip the beginning unnecessary lines.

You can then just split the lines with the floats using the String split command and parse the values from there.

Pseudocode(Untested)

Code:

---

FileReader reader = new FileReader(file);
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(reader);
boolean eof = false;
int lineNumber = 0;
while(!eof) {
    String line = br.readLine();
    if (line == null) {
          break;
    }
    lineNumber++;
    if (lineNumber > NumberOfUnnecessaryLines) {
          String[] floatValues = line.split(" ");
          float a = Float.parseFloat(floatValues[0]);
          float b = Float.parseFloat(floatValues[1]);
          Add a to array(Or something similar)
          Add b to array(Or something similar)
    }
}

---

The above code currently will probably run deeper into the file then you want, you would need to think of a way to escape the while loop by setting the eof to true. This would be done when you reach the end of the float values and can be determined either by a line number or when the parsing or splitting throw an exception.

Thanks for help :).

I managed to cut the unnecessary lines (I used line.trim().startsWith("=") condition in order to cut unnecessary ending, which appeared just 1 line: "=======" :) ).

Ufortunately, when I wrote

Code:

---

String[] floatValues = nextLine.split(" ");
            Float[] tmp1=null, tmp2=null;
            int k=0;
          float a = Float.parseFloat(floatValues[0]);
          float b = Float.parseFloat(floatValues[1]);
          tmp1[k]=a;
          tmp2[k]=b;
          k++;

---

I obtain Exception (message from NetBeans): java.lang.NumberFormatException: empty String

What is wrong here?

OK, the issue has been solved. I present the full code below:

Code:

---

import javax.swing.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.util.ArrayList;

private void btnOpenActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {                                       
            chooser = new JFileChooser();
            int returnVal = chooser.showOpenDialog(this);
            File file1 = chooser.getSelectedFile();
            String nextLine = "";
            String FileName = file1.getName();
//I decided to use ArrayList here. I create 3 different arraylists
            ArrayList<Float> data1 = new ArrayList<Float>();
            ArrayList<Float> data2 = new ArrayList<Float>();
            ArrayList<Float> data3 = new ArrayList<Float>(); //data 3 is not necessary - it is more "Dummy" arraylist
  try {
    FileReader fr = new FileReader(file1);
    BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(fr);
    while((nextLine = br.readLine()) != null) {

//the following conditions correspond solely to my file; it would be great if somebody could write me more enhanced way of "expressing" it
    if ((nextLine.trim().startsWith("0")||
            nextLine.trim().startsWith("1")||
            nextLine.trim().startsWith("2")||
            nextLine.trim().startsWith("3")||
            nextLine.trim().startsWith("4")||
            nextLine.trim().startsWith("5")||
            nextLine.trim().startsWith("6")||
            nextLine.trim().startsWith("7")||
            nextLine.trim().startsWith("8")||
            nextLine.trim().startsWith("9"))&&
            (!nextLine.trim().startsWith("702 SM"))){
    String[] theline = nextLine.trim().split(" +");//(" +") means "1 or more white spaces"
    data1.add(Float.parseFloat(theline[0]));
    data2.add(Float.parseFloat(theline[1]));
    } }
}
  catch(FileNotFoundException fN) {
    fN.printStackTrace();
  }
  catch(IOException e) {
    System.out.println(e);
}

      System.out.println(data1);
      System.out.println(data2);

            if (returnVal == JFileChooser.APPROVE_OPTION) {
                lblPath.setText(FileName);
            }
       
}

---