Java Read Large Text File With 70million line of text

1) I am sure there is no difference speedwise, both use FileInputStream internally and buffering

2) You can take measurements and see for yourself

3) Though there's no performance benefits I like the 1.7 approach

try (BufferedReader br = Files.newBufferedReader(Paths.get("test.txt"), StandardCharsets.UTF_8)) {
    for (String line = null; (line = br.readLine()) != null;) {
        //
    }
}

4) Scanner based version

    try (Scanner sc = new Scanner(new File("test.txt"), "UTF-8")) {
        while (sc.hasNextLine()) {
            String line = sc.nextLine();
        }
        // note that Scanner suppresses exceptions
        if (sc.ioException() != null) {
            throw sc.ioException();
        }
    }

5) This may be faster than the rest

try (SeekableByteChannel ch = Files.newByteChannel(Paths.get("test.txt"))) {
    ByteBuffer bb = ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(1000);
    for(;;) {
        StringBuilder line = new StringBuilder();
        int n = ch.read(bb);
        // add chars to line
        // ...
    }
}

it requires a bit of coding but it can be really faster because of ByteBuffer.allocateDirect. It allows OS to read bytes from file to ByteBuffer directly, without copying

6) Parallel processing would definitely increase speed. Make a big byte buffer, run several tasks that read bytes from file into that buffer in parallel, when ready find first end of line, make a String, find next...


If you are looking out at performance, you could have a look at the java.nio.* packages - those are supposedly faster than java.io.*


In Java 8, for anyone looking now to read file large files line by line,

Stream<String> lines = Files.lines(Paths.get("c:\myfile.txt"));
lines.forEach(l -> {
  // Do anything line by line   
});