Thread: Reading in entire contents of text file to one string

Hi Guys ,

i have a text file Content.txt which only contains the letter 'a'

i want to create a method which will read in all contents of the text document and store it in one string

i have been using

       ArrayList<String> al = new ArrayList<String>();
       int count =0;
       String inputtext = "";
       Object[] StringElements;
     try{
        FileInputStream fstream = new FileInputStream(InputFile);
        // Get the object of DataInputStream
        DataInputStream in = new DataInputStream(fstream);
 
        BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));
        String strLine;
        //Read File Line By Line
 
            while ((strLine = br.readLine()) != null) //loop through each line
            {
            // Print the content on the console
            al.add(count, strLine); // Store the text file in the string
            ++count; //incrament count
            }
        in.close();//Close the input stream
        StringElements = al.toArray(); //convert al array to object
 
        for (int a = 0; a < StringElements.length; a++) {
       inputtext += StringElements[a];
       }
 
 
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {//Catch exception if any
        System.out.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
        }
       return inputtext;

however when i print out the string i get 2 charcters 1 is a weired apostrophie dot thing and the letter a . i have checked the text file and only 'a' is in there See pic below





Do you guys know why i am getting this can you help

i have looked everywhere and that weired dot is n ot in my program at all i think the read in text file thing is boogerd

i have chop[ped down the method but i still get that strange charcter

    public static String Inputfile2String(String InputFile) {
 
        String inputtext = "";
 
        try {
            FileInputStream fstream = new FileInputStream(InputFile);  // Get the object of DataInputStream
            DataInputStream in = new DataInputStream(fstream);
 
            BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));
            String strLine;
            //Read File Line By Line
 
            while ((strLine = br.readLine()) != null) //loop through each line
            {              
                inputtext += strLine; // Store the text file in the string
            }//end of while
 
        } catch (Exception e) {//Catch exception if any
            System.out.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
        }
        return inputtext;
    }//end of Inputfile2String method

i think its 250 on the secound ascii table

the results of

[code]
System.out.println("input ="+inputtext);

System.out.println("it is"+inputtext.charAt(0));

System.out.println("it is"+(int) inputtext.charAt(0));
System.out.println("it is"+(byte) inputtext.charAt(0));
[code]


it is ·
it is65279
it is-1


alt 250 = ··· and it seems pretty much the same character

it wont allow me to paste the chacrter in from the netbeans output window

im strugglig to get my program to only read in the text which can be input on a english keyuboard

I'd suggest using the Scanner and StringBuilder classes.