Trying to omit first line of CSV file (the header)

Question

Hello everybody,
Newbie here havin a lil problem. I have this program below that reads in a CSV file. My test CSV file has the follow structure:
ID, LastName, FirstName, Phone, Email,
2345, Yez, Wei do, 456-789-0123, [email protected],
2744, Avanto, Aldo, 562-593-6500, [email protected],
1212, Dewy, Cheatem, 123-456-7890, [email protected],
1234, No, Wei Foo, 123-456-7890, [email protected],
The first line is my header. (here is the heart of my problem)
I have the program reading in the file and the it sorts it. The problem i have is that the first line, my header gets sorted with everything else. Here is my feable attempt with resulting error:
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
public class File2Array {
    public static void main(String[] args)
        File file = new File("person_test1.csv"); //File to read in
        ArrayList persons = (ArrayList) getPersons(file); //call to arraylist
        Collections.sort(persons);
        for (Iterator i = persons.iterator(); i.hasNext(); )
            System.out.println(i.next());
    public static List getPersons(File file)
//NEW PIECE OF CODE        boolean first = true;
        ArrayList persons = new ArrayList();
        try {
            BufferedReader buf = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
            while (buf.ready()) {
                String line = buf.readLine();
//NEW PIECE OF CODE
     while( ( line = buf.readLine() ) != null )
          if( first )
               first = false;    continue;
//ORIGINAL IF
     //   if (!line.equals("") )
//NEW IF
                if (line != null && !line.equals("") )
//END OF NEW CODE
                     StringTokenizer tk = new StringTokenizer(line, ",");
                     ArrayList params = new ArrayList();
                     while (tk.hasMoreElements())
                         params.add(tk.nextToken());
                     Person p = new Person(
                             (String) params.get(0),
                             (String) params.get(1),
                             (String) params.get(2),
                             (String) params.get(3),
                             (String) params.get(4));
                     persons.add(p);
        } catch (IOException ioe)
            System.err.println(ioe);
        return persons;
class Person implements Comparable
    private String ID;
    private String LastName;
    private String FirstName;
    private String Phone;
    private String Email;
    public Person(
        String ID,
        String LastName,
        String FirstName,
        String Phone,
        String Email)
        if (FirstName==null || LastName==null)
            throw new NullPointerException();
        this.ID = ID;
        this.LastName = LastName;
        this.FirstName = FirstName;
        this.Phone = Phone;
        this.Email = Email;
    public String toString()
        StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer ();
        sb.append( ID );
        sb.append(" ");
        sb.append( LastName );
        sb.append(" ");
        sb.append( FirstName );
        sb.append(" ");
        sb.append( Phone );
        sb.append(" ");
        sb.append( Email );
        sb.append(" ");
        return sb.toString();
    public boolean equals(Object o)
        if (!(o instanceof Person))
            return false;
        Person p = (Person)o;
        return p.FirstName.equals(FirstName) &&
               p.LastName.equals(LastName);
    public int hashCode()
        return 31*FirstName.hashCode() + LastName.hashCode();
    public int compareTo(Object o)
        Person p = (Person)o;
        int lastCmp = LastName.compareTo(p.LastName);
        return (lastCmp!=0 ? lastCmp :
                FirstName.compareTo(p.FirstName));
this code compiles and runs but does not produce any output and I don't understand why.
Question: What is the proper way to have the code omit the first line of a CSV file??
By the way I do have another file called person.java that goes with this but I didn't think I had to post it.
Also am I posting correctly? Am I putting in too much code??
Than you!!

Answer 1

Hot diggity! jverd,
I got it to work!! here's what I did all thanks to you :-)
ArrayList persons = new ArrayList();
        try {
            BufferedReader buf = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
            //read through file and populate array
            //while (buf.ready()) {
                String firstline = buf.readLine();  //gets header, renamed line to firstline
                String line;                  //added this line     
                System.out.println(firstline);     //added this to print out firstline     
     //try this
          while( ( line = buf.readLine() ) != null )
          /*{                    //commented out this portion
          if( first )
               first = false;    continue;
          //end try this                
                //if (line != null && !line.equals("") )     //down to here
                if (!line.equals("") )          //added this
                     StringTokenizer tk = new StringTokenizer(line, ",");
                     ArrayList params = new ArrayList();
                     while (tk.hasMoreElements())
                         params.add(tk.nextToken());
                     Person p = new Person(
                             (String) params.get(0),
                             (String) params.get(1),
                             (String) params.get(2),
                             (String) params.get(3),
                             (String) params.get(4));
                     persons.add(p);
                  }