New to Java Please, I want to understand..

Question

Hi,
Here is what I am trying to do. I have a *.csv file that I want to put into an arraylist and the see the results on the screen. I get the code to compile but I don't understand the run-time error that is generated. Below is the code I am using plus the *.CSV and the run-time error:
//The code
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
public class File2Array {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        File file = new File("persons_test.csv");
        ArrayList persons = (ArrayList) getPersons(file);
        for (Iterator i = persons.iterator(); i.hasNext(); ) {
            System.out.println(i.next());
    public static List getPersons(File file) {
        ArrayList persons = new ArrayList();
        try {
            BufferedReader buf = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
            while (buf.ready()) {
                String line = buf.readLine();
                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 {
    private String ID;
    public Person(
        String ID,
        String LastName,
        String FirstName,
        String Phone,
        String Email) {
        this.ID = ID;
    public String toString() {
        return ID;
}//The comma separated values
*.CSV:
ID, LastName, FirstName, Phone, Email
2744, Avanto, Aldo, 562-593-6500, [email protected]
1212, Dewy, Cheatem, 123-456-7890, [email protected]
2345, yez, Wei do, 456-789-0123, [email protected]
//The error
Error:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 0, Size:
0
at java.util.ArrayList.RangeCheck(Unknown Source)
at java.util.ArrayList.get(Unknown Source)
at TryReadFileToArray_2.getPersons(TryReadFileToArray_2.java:25)
at TryReadFileToArray_2.main(TryReadFileToArray_2.java:8)

Answer 1

Both of the above 2 posts are right about the line breaks. I tried it and that caused the same exception message. Here is the modified relevant code which fixes that issue (solution suggested by jboeing). After this fix, I can have as many line breaks without any problem.
while (buf.ready()) {
                    String line = buf.readLine();
                    if (!line.equals("")){ //NEW LINE ADDED
                         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);      
               }My java file and csv file is a copy/paste job from your first post. My CSV file does not have any line breaks at all. I used Eclipse3 for java. I also tried using Notepad/command prompt combo. Same output from both versions.