How can i read the same file two times in Java?

Question

I want to counter the lines of the file and in the second pass i want to take every single line and manipulating it. It doesn't have a compilation error but it can't go inside the second while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) . Is there a different way to get the lines(movies) of the file and storing in an array ?

        BufferedReader br = null;

        try { // try to read the file
            br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("movies.txt"));
            String line;
            int numberOfMovies = 0;
            while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
                numberOfMovies++;
            }
            Movie[] movies = new Movie[numberOfMovies]; // store in a Movie
                                                        // array every movie of
                                                        // the file
            String title = "";
            int id = 0;
            int likes = 0;
            int icounter = 0; // count to create new movie for each line
            while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
                line = line.trim();
                line = line.replaceAll("/t", "");
                line = line.toLowerCase();
                String[] tokens = line.split(" "); // store every token in a
                                                    // string array
                id = Integer.parseInt(tokens[0]);
                likes = Integer.parseInt(tokens[tokens.length]);
                for (int i = 1; i < tokens.length; i++) {
                    title = title + " " + tokens[i];
                }
                movies[icounter] = new Movie(id, title, likes);
                icounter++;
            }


        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

Answer 1

Simplest way would be to reset br again.

try { // try to read the file 
    br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("movies.txt"));
    String line; int numberOfMovies = 0;
    while (br.hasNextLine()){
        numberOfMovies++;
    }
    br.close();
    Movie[] movies = new Movie[numberOfMovies];
    // store in a Movie
    // array every movie of
    // the file
    String title = "";
    int id = 0;
    int likes = 0;
    int icounter = 0;
    // count to create new movie for each line
    br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("movies.txt"));
    while ((br.hasNextLine()) {
        line = line.trim();
        line = line.replaceAll("/t", "");
        line = line.toLowerCase();
        String[] tokens = line.split(" ");
        // store every token in a
        // string array
        id = Integer.parseInt(tokens[0]);
        likes = Integer.parseInt(tokens[tokens.length]);
        for (int i = 1; i < tokens.length; i++) {
            title = title + " " + tokens[i];
        }
        movies[icounter] = new Movie(id, title, likes);
        icounter++;
    }
} catch (IOException e) { e.printStackTrace(); }

I changed br.nextLine() != null to br.hasNextLine() because it's shorter and more appropriate in this case. Plus it won't consume a line.

Answer 2

There are two things here:

1. InputStreams and Readers are one-shot structures: once you've read them to the end, you either need to explicitly rewind them (if they support rewinding), or you need to close them (always close your streams and readers!) and open a new one.

2. However in this case the two passes are completely unnecessary, just use a dynamically growing structure to collect your Movie objects instead of arrays: an ArrayList for example.