Reading file in a 2d Array

Question

Hi there
I was wondering if anyone has some suggestions on how i can read a tab limited file in a two dimensional array. heres some i was trying but doesn't seem to get me the results i want
1) Read one line at a time into an array
2) Add the array to a list
3) convert the list to a twoD array.
the code is
List lines = new ArrayList();
int rowscount = 0;
String[] colHeader = new String[]{};
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(inFile));
String line = br.readLine();
while(line != null)
     //the first line contains column headers
     if (rowsCount == 0)
         colHeader = line.split("\t");
    else
         String[] tempVal = line.split("\t");
         lines.add(tempVal); //add to the list
         rowscount++;
         line = br.readLine();
String data[][] = new String[lines.size()][colHeader.length];
for (int i=0; i<lines.size(); i++)
     data[i] = (String[]) lines.get(i);
     for (int j = 0; j < colHeader.length; j++)
         logger.debug("DATA: "+data[i][j]);
     // this gives me arrayindexoutofboundexception
   } Well the error is coz the columnheaders are 16, but the actual data below column headers has only 10 columns and rest 6 are empty tabs...I want to include those empty tabs in the array(tempVal). Can anyone suggest me a better solution or modify this one so it works
Thanking you

Answer 1

Something like:
while (...) {
  String [] rowContents = line.split("\t");
  if (rowsCount == 0) {
    colHeader = rowContents;
  else {
    int numRemaining = colHeader.length - rowContents.length;
    if (numRemaining > 0) {
      List list = new ArrayList(Arrays.asList(rowContents));
      list.addAll(Collections.nCopies(numRemaining, ""));
      rowContents = (String [])list.toArray(rowContents);
      lines.add(rowContents);
  rowsCount++;
  line = br.readLine();
}