javaionewlinedelimiter

How do you keep scanner.next() from including newline?


I am trying to simply read words in a text file using scanner.next() with delimiter equal " " but the scanner includes the newline/carriage return with the token.

I have scoured the internet trying to find a good example of this problem and have not found it so I am posting it here. I can't find another similar problem posted here on SO. I also looked over the documentation on scanner and pattern (http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.5.0/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html) but I still cannot find a way to solve this.

Text file:

This is a test

to see if1 this, is working

ok!

Code:

int i = 0;
String string;
try(Scanner scanner = new Scanner(new File(filename))) {
    scanner.useDelimiter(" ");
    while(scanner.hasNext())
    {
    string = scanner.next();
    System.out.println(i++ + ": " + string);
    }
}catch(IOException io_error) {
    System.out.println(io_error);
    }

Output:

0: This

1: is

2: a

3: test

to

4: see

5: if1

6: this,

7: is

8: working

ok!

As you can see, #3 and #8 have two words separated by a newline. (I know I can separate these into two separate strings.)


Solution

  • The documentation of Scanner says:

    The default whitespace delimiter used by a scanner is as recognized by Character.isWhitespace

    And the linked documentation of Character.isWhitespace says:

    Determines if the specified character is white space according to Java. A character is a Java whitespace character if and only if it satisfies one of the following criteria:

    • It is a Unicode space character (SPACE_SEPARATOR, LINE_SEPARATOR, or PARAGRAPH_SEPARATOR) but is not also a non-breaking space ('\u00A0', '\u2007', '\u202F').
    • It is '\t', U+0009 HORIZONTAL TABULATION.
    • It is '\n', U+000A LINE FEED.
    • It is '\u000B', U+000B VERTICAL TABULATION.
    • It is '\f', U+000C FORM FEED.
    • It is '\r', U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN.
    • It is '\u001C', U+001C FILE SEPARATOR.
    • It is '\u001D', U+001D GROUP SEPARATOR.
    • It is '\u001E', U+001E RECORD SEPARATOR.
    • It is '\u001F', U+001F UNIT SEPARATOR.

    So, just don't set any specific delimiter. Keep the default, and newlines will be considered as a delimiter just like spaces, which means the token won't include newline characters.