Java FileReader

Java FileReader class is part of java.io package.
The FileReader is a subclass of InputStreamReader class.
Java FileReader is recommended for reading text data from a file compared to FileInputStream.
FileReader is meant for reading streams of characters. So it’s a good choice to read String based data.
The constructors of this class assume that the default character encoding and the default byte-buffer size are appropriate.
FileReaders are usually wrapped by higher-level objects such as BufferedReader, which improve performance and provide more convenient ways to work with the data.

FileReader Class Hierarchy

FileReader Constructors

Let’s have a quick look at FileReader constructors.

FileReader(File file): Creates a new FileReader object using specified file object to read from. It will throw FileNotFoundException if the file does not exist, is a directory rather than a regular file, or for some other reason cannot be opened for reading.
FileReader(FileDescriptor fd): Creates a new FileReader object using specified FileDescriptor object to read from.
FileReader(String fileName): Creates a new FileReader object using specified name of the file to read from. It will throw FileNotFoundException if the named file does not exist, is a directory rather than a regular file, or for some other reason cannot be opened for reading.

Java FileReader Example

Let’s have a look at the below methods and example programs of FileReader class.

read()

This method reads a single character. This method will block until a character is available, an I/O error occurs, or the end of the stream is reached. It returns the character read as an integer in the range 0 to 65535 (0x00-0xffff), or -1 if the end of the stream has been reached.

Let’s have look at the below example program.


package com.journaldev.examples;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileReader;

/**
 * Java Read file FileReader
 * 
 * @author pankaj
 *
 */
public class FileReaderReadExample {

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		File file = null;
		FileReader reader = null;
		try {
			file = new File("D:/data/file.txt");
			reader = new FileReader(file);
			int i;
			while ((i=reader.read())!= -1) {
				System.out.print((char)i);
			}
		} catch (Exception e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}finally {
			try {
				if (reader != null) {
					reader.close();
				}
			} catch (Exception e2) {
				e2.printStackTrace();
			}
		}
	}
}

The output of the above program is below:


Hello World.
This is a FileReader Example.

FileReader implements AutoCloseable interface, hence we can user try with resource while using FileReader class. Let’s have look at the below example program.


package com.journaldev.examples;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileReader;

/**
 * Java Read file FileReader using try with resource
 * 
 * @author pankaj
 *
 */
public class FileReaderReadUsingTryWithResource {

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		File file = new File("D:/data/file.txt");
		try (FileReader reader = new FileReader(file);){
			int i;
			while ((i=reader.read())!= -1) {
				System.out.print((char)i);
			}
		} catch (Exception e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
	}
}

Output of the above program is below:


Hello World.
This is a FileReader Example.

read(char[] cbuf)

This method reads characters into an array. This method will block until some input is available, an I/O error occurs, or the end of the stream is reached. It returns the number of characters read, or -1 if the end of the stream has been reached. Let’s have look at the below example program.


package com.journaldev.examples;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileReader;

/**
 * Java Read file FileReader using read(char[] cbuf) method
 * 
 * @author pankaj
 *
 */
public class ReadFileUsingFileReader {

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		File file = new File("D:/data/file.txt");
		try (FileReader reader = new FileReader(file);){
			char[] cs = new char[100];
			reader.read(cs);
			for (char c : cs) {
				System.out.print(c);
			}
		} catch (Exception e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
	}
}

The output of the above program is below:


Hello World.
This is a FileReader Example.

read(char[] cbuf, int off, int len)

This method reads characters into a portion of an array. This method will block until some input is available, an I/O error occurs, or the end of the stream is reached. It returns the number of characters read, or -1 if the end of the stream has been reached.

Parameters:

cbuf : Destination buffer
off : Offset at which to start storing characters
len : Maximum number of characters to read


package com.journaldev.examples;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileReader;

/**
 * Java Read file FileReader using read(char[] cbuf, int off, int len) method
 * 
 * @author pankaj
 *
 */
public class ReadFileUsingFileReaderExample {

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		File file = new File("D:/data/file.txt");
		try (FileReader reader = new FileReader(file);){
			char[] cs = new char[100];
			reader.read(cs, 0, 11);
			for (char c : cs) {
				System.out.print(c);
			}
		} catch (Exception e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
	}
}

//Output: Hello World

read(CharBuffer target)

This method reads characters into the specified character buffer. The buffer is used as a repository of characters as-is: the only changes made are the results of a put operation. No flipping or rewinding of the buffer is performed. It returns the number of characters added to the buffer, or -1 if this source of characters is at its end.


package com.journaldev.examples;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.nio.CharBuffer;

/**
 * Java Read file FileReader using CharBuffer
 * 
 * @author pankaj
 *
 */
public class ReadFileUsingFileReaderCharBuffer {

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		File file = new File("D:/data/file.txt");
		try (FileReader reader = new FileReader(file);){
			//create char buffer with the capacity of 50
			CharBuffer cs = CharBuffer.allocate(50);
			//read characters into char buffer
			reader.read(cs);
			//flip char buffer
			cs.flip();
			System.out.println(cs.toString());
		} catch (Exception e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
	}
}

skip(long n)

This method skips the n number of character and returns the number of skipped characters.


package com.journaldev.examples;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileReader;

/**
 * Java Read file FileReader using skip method
 * 
 * @author pankaj
 *
 */
public class FileReaderSkipExample {

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		File file = null;
		FileReader reader = null;
		try {
			file = new File("D:/data/file.txt");
			reader = new FileReader(file);
			//skip first 6 characters
			reader.skip(6);
			int i;
			while ((i=reader.read())!= -1) {
				System.out.print((char)i);
			}
		} catch (Exception e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}finally {
			try {
				if (reader != null) {
					reader.close();
				}
			} catch (Exception e2) {
				e2.printStackTrace();
			}
		}
	}
}

Output:


World.
This is a FileReader Example.

Also check java read text file for more about how to read text file in java.

Java FileReader vs FileInputStream

FileReader is used for reading streams of character while FileInputStream is used for reading streams of bytes like raw image data.
FileReader is good for reading text file like java source code file while FileInputStream is good for reading binary files like .class files.

That’s all for Java FileReader, I hope nothing important got missed here.

Reference: API Doc