Question

I’m triying to read the text file below with a java.util.Scanner in a simple Java Program.

0001;GUAJARA-MIRIM;RO
0002;ALTO ALEGRE DOS PARECIS;RO
0003;PORTO VELHO;RO

I read the text file using the code below:

scanner = new Scanner(filerader).useDelimiter("\\;|\\n");
while (scanner.hasNext()) {
    int id= scanner.nextInt();
    String name = scanner.next();
    String code = scanner.next();

    System.out.printf(".%s.%s.%d.\n", name, code, id);
}

The results are:

.GUAJARA-MIRIM.RO.1
.
.ALTO ALEGRE DOS PARECIS.RO.2
.
.PORTO VELHO.RO.3
.

But the result of the third token of each line has an incovenient ‘\r’ caracther at the end (ANSI code 13). I have no idea why (I used the ‘.’ character on the formatting string to to make it clear where the ‘\r’ is).

So,

1. Why there’s a ‘\r’ at the end of the third token?
2. How to bypass it.

It is very simple to use an workaround like code.substring(0, 2), but instead I want to understand why there’s a ‘\r’ character there.

Answer 1

In some file systems(specially Windows), \r\n is used a new line character. You are using \n only a delimiter so \r remain out. Add \r also in your delimiters.

To make your code little more robust, use System.lineSeparator() to get the new line characters and use the delimiters accordingly.