Parse data from text file in Java

Question

I'm trying to create a parser in Java that would help me to get some details from a text file.

The data in the file looks like this, but with more entries:

. 
http://www.someurl1.com/
PERSONAL ADDRESS: Mozart, W.A.; Some address 1, Austria; email: [email protected]

. 
http://www.someurl2.com/
PERSONAL ADDRESS: Beethoven, L.V.; Some address 2, Germany; email: [email protected]

As you can see, the data always respects a pattern, and what I would like to get is just the name and the e-mail for every entry. A possible good output would be this:

Mozart, W.A. ; [email protected]
Beethoven, L.V. ; [email protected]

Every entry starts with a . followed by a space in the first line. Then in the next line above the dot, there's the URL. In the following line, there's more data: name, address and e-mail, all separated by a ;.

This isn't hard but I'm having some troubles starting. I've created a Main class in which I read the text file to a String. But then I really don't know what's the best way to parse something like this in Java, if I should try to use regular expressions or just get looking for the ;.

I've started by creating a Main class in which I read the file to a String. But then I'm not sure how to parse it, if I should use regular expressions or just simply doing it the "hard" way. — gd_silva
– gd_silva, Commented Sep 8, 2014 at 18:19
@gd.silva Please update your question with what you have already tried. — admdrew
– admdrew, Commented Sep 8, 2014 at 18:19
If you have tried something and facing issues, you can post it here. Should be quite straight forward unless you have some complex requirement. Use a file reader to read each line and split based on the separator to a list and then use whatever data is needed from the list. — Priyabrat Nanda
– Priyabrat Nanda, Commented Sep 8, 2014 at 18:20

erad · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-08 18:27:46Z

5

Read in the text file line by line and then do an action based on that line.

BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
String line;
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
   // process the line.
   if (line.equals(". "))
   {
       // Do something with first line
       line = br.readLine()
       // Do something with second line
       line = br.readLine()
       // Split up the third line by space 
       String split[]= StringUtils.split(line); // split[1] = "Mozart," so you may need to do a little more work there
   }
}
br.close();

answered Sep 8, 2014 at 18:27

erad

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Luo Sen · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-08 18:43:35Z

1

Use split strings for name is easy, then use regular expression to catch the email part! There are alot of examples, here is one of them

\b[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}\b

answered Sep 8, 2014 at 18:43

Luo Sen

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