Please Help with text parsing problem

Question

Hello,
I have the following text in a file (cut and pasted from VI)
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 80053 1 1,2,3 $23.00 1 ^M
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 84550 1 1,2,3 $15.00 1 ^M
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 84100 1 1,2,3 $15.00 1 ^M
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 83615 1 1,2,3 $15.00 1 ^M
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 82977 1 1,2,3 $15.00 1 ^M
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 80061 1 1,2,3 $44.00 1 ^M
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 83721 1 1,2,3 $15.00 1 ^M
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 84439 1 1,2,3 $44.00 1 ^M
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 84443 1 1,2,3 $40.00 1 ^M
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 85025 1 1,2,3 $26.00 1 ^M
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 85008 1 1,2,3 $5.00 1 ^M
this method reads the text from a file and stores it in a ArrayList
    public ArrayList readInData(){
        File claimFile = new File(fullClaimPath);
        ArrayList returnDataAL = new ArrayList();
        if(!claimFile.exists()){
            System.out.println("Error: claim data - File Not Found");
            System.exit(1);
        try{
            BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(claimFile));
            String s;
            while ((s = br.readLine()) != null){
                     System.out.println(s + " HHHH");
                    returnDataAL.add(s);
        }catch(Exception e){ System.out.println(e);}
        return returnDataAL;
    }//close loadFile()if i print the lines from above ... from the arraylist ... here is waht i get ...
2 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 80053 1 1,2,3 $23.00 1 HHHH
HHHH
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 84550 1 1,2,3 $15.00 1 HHHH
HHHH
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 84100 1 1,2,3 $15.00 1 HHHH
HHHH
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 83615 1 1,2,3 $15.00 1 HHHH
HHHH
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 82977 1 1,2,3 $15.00 1 HHHH
HHHH
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 80061 1 1,2,3 $44.00 1 HHHH
HHHH
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 83721 1 1,2,3 $15.00 1 HHHH
HHHH
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 84439 1 1,2,3 $44.00 1 HHHH
HHHH
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 84443 1 1,2,3 $40.00 1 HHHH
HHHH
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 85025 1 1,2,3 $26.00 1 HHHH
HHHH
12 15 03 12 15 03 81 5 85008 1 1,2,3 $5.00 1 HHHH
HHHH
I see the ^M on the end of the lines ... but i dont understand why im getting the blank lines
in between each entry ... I printed "HHHH" just to help with debugging ... anyone have any ideas why i am getting the extra blank lines?
thanks,
jd

Answer 1

maybe its a FileReader deal.. Im not sure, maybe try using InputStreams. This code works for me (it reads from data.txt), give it a try and see if it works:
import java.io.*;
public class Example {
     public Example() throws IOException {
          BufferedReader b = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream("data.txt")));
          String s = "";
          while ((s = b.readLine()) != null) {
               System.out.println(s);
          b.close();
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          try {
               new Example();
          catch (IOException e) {
               e.printStackTrace();
}