Thread: Read lines with specific characteristics from a file, exclude all others line.

Hi I am trying to write method to read lines with some specification from a file. for Example,

my text file contains following:--

12-01-01 13:26 San Jose 12.99 DVD
12-12-30 09:40 Miami 13.50 Music
14-08-30 10:20 Arizona 16.03 Scientist
11-07-10 09:10 New York 25.00 ColdPlay
14-08-30 10:20 Arizona 18.04 MeetYou
14-08-30 10:20 Arizona 50.03 Scientist
11-07-10 09:30 New York 25.00 ColdPlay
11-07-10 09:20 New York 25.00 ColdPlay

tab separated values, for different columns and these are the lines only I want method to read.
Now suppose if any is there as below, or even enter

12-01-01 13:26 San Jose 12.99 DVD
12-12-30 09:40 Miami 13.50 Music
14-08-30 10:20 Arizona 16.03 Scientist
11-07-10 09:10 New York 25.00 ColdPlay
14-08-30 10:20 Arizona 18.04 MeetYou
[new lines]
14-08-30 10:20 Arizona 50.03 Scientist
11-07-10 09:30 New York 25.00 ColdPlay
//This line should not be read
even this should not be read #$%^&
11-07-10 09:20 New York 25.00 ColdPlay

That particular line should be escaped. Till now I have done when the file format is proper, and it is as below:--

 
public static void main(String[] args) {
		 BufferedReader br = null;
		 String temp = null;
		 List<String> arrayRead = new ArrayList<String>();
		 try{
			 br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("D:\\testing\\SalesData.txt"));
			 while((temp=br.readLine())!= null){
				 arrayRead.add(temp);
			 }
			 int n = arrayRead.size();
			 System.out.println("No. of Records in file "+n);
			//Add arrayList data to String Array
			 String[] linesToRead = arrayRead.toArray(new String[arrayRead.size()]);
 
			 String[] lineX = null;
			 Hashtable<String, String> dataReq = new Hashtable<String, String>();
			 for(int i=0; i<arrayRead.size(); i++){
				 lineX = linesToRead[i].split("\\t");
				 dataReq.put(lineX[2], lineX[3]);
			 }
 
		 }
		 catch(FileNotFoundException f){
			 f.printStackTrace();
		 }
		 catch(IOException e){
			 e.printStackTrace();
		 }
		 finally{
			 if(br!= null){
				 try {
					br.close();
				} catch (IOException e) {
					e.printStackTrace();
				}
			 }
		 }
	}

Any help will be useful.

Originally Posted by PhHein

There are at least two possible solutions. a) read the line and use a regex to find out whether you add it to the list. b) read every line and add all of them to the list. Later when you parse the individual parts of a line you ignore those which are unparseable.

Yes.. for the solution a) could you provide me code please, how to use regex