read from file and display random line

Question

Im trying to get my android application to read from a text file and randomly chose an entry and then display it, How do i go about doing this? I think i have to use the buffer reader or input stream commands, but i have no idea how to use these, i've tried googling but havent found much help.

As far as i know (and with some help) i have to read the text file, add it to a string? and use the following command to randomly pick an entry

Random.nextInt(String[].length-1).

How do i go about doing this? :\ im quite new to all this bufferreader stuff etc.

Answer 1

You are asking about 2 different operations here. Don't cloud up the problem by muddling them together. You want to know how to:

1. Read a file from disk into a group of strings.

2. Randomly choose 1 string from a group of strings.

   // Read in the file into a list of strings
   BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("inputfile.txt"));
   List<String> lines = new ArrayList<String>();
   
   String line = reader.readLine();
   
   while( line != null ) {
       lines.add(line);
       line = reader.readLine();
   }
   
   // Choose a random one from the list
   Random r = new Random();
   String randomString = lines.get(r.nextInt(lines.size()));