Reading a file into an array?

[heycoa]

Hello,
I need to read a file into an array so I am able to manipulate it later. Among many things, taking a count of all the words in the file is something I need to do. My program is reading a file and storing as an array. It gives me a wrong number though. It only reads words up until a return/paragraph in the file. Any help on this would be much appreciated.
Here is the code:


import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.lang.*;
import java.text.*;

public class fileReader
{
public static String my_fName, str1 = null;
public static String[] words;

public fileReader(String fName)
{
try{
my_fName = fName;
FileInputStream fstream = new FileInputStream(my_fName);
DataInputStream in = new DataInputStream(fstream);
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader (new InputStreamReader(in));

(str1 = br.readLine()

String [] tokens = str1.split(" ");
words = tokens;


}
catch (Exception e){}
}

public static int numWords() throws NullPointerException
{
//String [] tokens = str1.split(" ");
int num1 = words.length;
return num1;
}

public static void main (String []args)
{
fileReader fr1 = new fileReader (args[0]);
System.out.println(fr1.numWords());
}
}

[Junky]

As far as I can see you only read one line from the file. You will need a loop to keep on reading until it gets to the end of the file.

[sunde887]

As junky said, you will need a loop. Also, it may be easier to use an array list, which can resize, as opposed to an array which has a fixed size.

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[code]
YOUR CODE HERE
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[heycoa]

is there any way you could give me an example? I am pretty new to java so that would be appreciated. The reason im not using an array list is because the array length will not need to be manipulated.

[sunde887]

The reason I suggested an ArrayList is because it can read the file in regardless of size, with an array you will need to know how many elements to allocate upon declaration of the array. You can calculate the size of the file before declaring and initializing the array but you will effectively be looping trough the file twice.

Here is pseudo code

loop read line
  Do stuff with line
end loop

This can be made more compact with this

while the read in line isn't null
  do something with the line 
end while