Question

I have written the following very simple Java program to ask user enter a file name, then it will report the number of lines of this file to the standard output:

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;

public class CountLine {

 public static void main(String[] args) 
 {

     //  prompt the user to enter their file name
    System.out.print("Please enter your file name: ");

    //  open up standard input
      BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));

      String fileName = null;

      //  read the username from the command-line; need to use try/catch with the
      //  readLine() method
      try {
         fileName = br.readLine();
      } catch (IOException ioe) {
         System.out.println("IO error trying to read your name!");
         System.exit(1);
      }

      System.out.println("Thanks for the file name, " + fileName);



    File file = new File("C:/Users/Will/Desktop/"+fileName);
    Scanner scanner;
    try {
        scanner = new Scanner(file);

    int count =0;
    String currentLine;

    while(scanner.hasNextLine())
    {
        currentLine=scanner.nextLine();
        count++;

    }

    System.out.println("The number of lines in this file is "+count);
    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        System.out.println("There is no such file");
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

}

It is working.I would be really thankful if experts could help me

1. see if there is anything that can be improved in this code fragment,
2. If the file is not found, the exception is caught in the outermost catch statement and print out the stack trace. However, I think it is not very user-friendly, is there a way if the file does not exist, then the whole process restarts from beginning?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Get some Structure in your code:

public static void main(String[] args) 
{
  string output;
  string fname = readFileName();
  if (fileValid(fname)) //Ensure FileExists
  {
     int lineCount = scaneFile(fname);   
     output = "some output text including line numbers"   
  }  
  else
  {
    output = "File Not Valid..."
  }
  //showOutput...
}