Split on new line when using BufferedReader Android

Question

I am trying to read from a text file, splitting the contents when a new line character is met and displaying the result in a TextView.

This is the readfromfile method that I have:

public String readFromFile(Context context) {
        String ret = "";
        try {
            InputStream inputStream = context.openFileInput("history.txt");
            if ( inputStream != null ) {
                InputStreamReader inputStreamReader = new InputStreamReader(inputStream);
                BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(inputStreamReader);
                String receiveString = "";
                StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
                while ( (receiveString = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null ) {
                    //receiveString.split("\n");
                    //String[] split = receiveString.split("\n\\s*");
                    stringBuilder.append(receiveString);
                   // if((receiveString = bufferedReader.readLine()) == "\n"){
                   // }
                }
                inputStream.close();
                //stringBuilder.
                ret = stringBuilder.toString();
            }
        }
        catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
            Log.e("login activity", "File not found: " + e.toString());
            Toast.makeText(this, "You have not sent any messages!!", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            Log.e("login activity", "Can not read file: " + e.toString());
            Toast.makeText(this, "Cannot read from file!!", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
        }
        return ret;
    }

And this is where the method is called:

String message = readFromFile(getApplicationContext()); // is this really needed? yes it is, use with readFromFile()
        TextView textView = new TextView(this);
        params2.addRule(RelativeLayout.BELOW, history.getId()); // this is very important for spacing using ids
        textView.setTextSize(14); //this might give an error or look weird on devices, horizontally and vertically
        textView.setText(message); // simplest fix is to force device to stick with horizontal, no common device is bigger than 5.5"
        //textView.setLayoutParams(new ViewGroup.LayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT));
        textView.setId(View.generateViewId()); // This requires a minimum API 17
        textView.setGravity(Gravity.LEFT | Gravity.BOTTOM);
        layout.addView(textView, params2);

I think the issue might be the append that I am using with the string to display, i.e. I am returning a string with appended text.

This is the View output:

Output

I am trying to load from a file called history.txt, which contains all SMS's that have been sent using the app in string format.

This is the writeToFile method:

public void writeToFile(String data,Context context) {
        try {
            OutputStreamWriter outputStreamWriter = new OutputStreamWriter(context.openFileOutput("history.txt", Context.MODE_APPEND));
            //format data string here to include time stamp
            BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter(outputStreamWriter);

            String currentDateTime = DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance().format(new Date());

                outputStreamWriter.append("\n");
                outputStreamWriter.append(data);
                outputStreamWriter.append(" ");
                outputStreamWriter.append(currentDateTime);
                writer.newLine();

                outputStreamWriter.close();

        }
        catch (IOException e) {
            Log.e("Exception", "File write failed: " + e.toString());
        }
    }

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Perhaps you should use a ListView instead. Each row of the ListView can be a single TextView for a single line from the file or can be multiple TextViews if you want to break the data into nicely formatted columns.