Store entire line of text file in array line by line (not word by word; include spaces)

Question

I am writing a program where the contents of a text file will be stored in an array line by line. I have it working, but it's only storing one word at a time.

  try ( Scanner fin = new Scanner ( new File("toDoItems.txt") ); ) 
    {
    for (int i = 0; i < listCount && fin.hasNext(); i++) 
          {
          textItem[i] = fin.next();
          }
    }

The listCount variable stores how many lines to read from the file, from the top. Instead it is telling it how many words to read. What can I do to read the entire line into the Array, without knowing how long each line may be?

I set the array size to much larger than I need and I am using the following to display the items one line at a time and only displaying the items in use (so to avoid a long list of nulls)

    for (int i = 0; i < listCount; i++) 
          {
              String temp = textItem[i];
              System.out.println(temp);
          }

(For this I am restricted to arrays only. No Arraylists or lists)

Note: Most similar questions I could find are only attempting to store lines that contain a single word.

Are you bound to using a scanner? A buffered reader would get you each line at a time — andrewdleach, Aug 01 '15 at 02:45
Dup:http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20311266/read-line-with-scanner — schil227, Aug 01 '15 at 02:48

Mateusz Dymczyk · Accepted Answer · 2015-08-01T05:58:22.417

1

Change fin.hasNext() to fin.hasNextLine() and fin.next() to fin.nextLine().

For future reference, you can find that kind of information in the official documentation.

edited Aug 01 '15 at 05:58

answered Aug 01 '15 at 02:47

Mateusz Dymczyk

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ahh! Thanks! That's what I missed! – Elliander Aug 01 '15 at 02:53

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 01 '15 at 02:53

In Java8, you can use stream with limit to yield file list content line by line:

 List<String> contents = Files.lines(Paths.get("toDoItems.txt")).limit(listCount).collect(Collectors.toList());

fin.next() will get the next input by token. it should be fin.nextLine()

Store entire line of text file in array line by line (not word by word; include spaces)

2 Answers2