Java – Count and print number of words and lines in a text file

In this article, we will count and print number of words and lines in a text file i.e.;

1. Counting & printing from text file:

  • Number of lines
  • Number of words

Note:- Same example is implemented using Java 1.8 version and Stream, check Java 8 – Count and print number of lines and words in a text file

1.1 Steps for counting words and lines:

  1. First write logic to read file from local drive location using BufferedReader & FileReader
  2. Read file line-by-line using while-loop and increase lineCount variable by 1 (starting from 0, already initialised at the top of method)
  3. For every line, split String using space as delimiter & assign it to temporary String[] array
  4. Get number of word count using length property of String[] array
  5. Now add word count to already initialized wordCount variable (starting from 0, already initialised at the top of method)
  6. Finally print lineCount & wordCount to console

Sample text file:

Let us move forward and write a simple Java program to demonstrate these steps

ReadCountPrintLinesAndWordsInTextFile.java

package in.bench.resources.count.print.occurences;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;

public class ReadCountPrintLinesAndWordsInTextFile {

	// main() method - entry point to start execution
	public static void main(String[] args) {

		// invoke to count & print for supplied file
		countAndPrintLineWord("D://WORKSPACE/TEST_WORKSPACE/"
				+ "Java_8_Project/BRN.txt");
	}

	/**
	 * this method count &
	 * prints number of lines & words in a text file
	 * @param fileName
	 */
	public static void countAndPrintLineWord(String fileName) {

		// local variables
		BufferedReader bufferedReader = null;
		String line = "";
		int lineCount = 0;
		int wordCount = 0 ;

		// Step 1: Read file from local drive location
		try {
			bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(
					new FileReader(fileName));

			// Step 2: Read line from file
			while ((line = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null) {

				// increase line count by 1
				lineCount++;

				// Step 3: split line using space as delimiter
				String[] words = line.split(" ");

				// Step 4 & 5: add word count length
				wordCount = wordCount + words.length;
			}

			// Step 6: print the count value of line & word
			System.out.println("Number of lines is : "
					+ lineCount);
			System.out.println("Number of words is : "
					+ wordCount);
		}
		catch (FileNotFoundException fnfex) {
			fnfex.printStackTrace();
		}
		catch (IOException ioex) {
			ioex.printStackTrace();
		}
		finally {

			// close resources, if any
			try {
				if(null != bufferedReader) {
					bufferedReader.close();
				}
			}
			catch (IOException ioex) {
				ioex.printStackTrace();
			}
		}
	}
}

Output:

Number of lines is : 4
Number of words is : 41

2. Java 1.7 version onwards:

With the introduction of Java 1.7 version,

  • We can simplify the above code by removing finally blocks
  • Replacing with try-with-resources statement which takes care of automatic resource management (ARM) i.e.; auto-closing of opened resources without explicit closing inside finally block after necessary null-safety checks
  • Thus, it improves readability of the code by reducing number of lines of code
  • Let us re-write above program again with try-with-resources statement

ReadCountPrintLinesAndWordsInTextFile.java

package in.bench.resources.count.print.occurences;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;

public class ReadCountPrintLinesAndWordsInTextFile {

	// main() method - entry point to start execution
	public static void main(String[] args) {

		// invoke to count & print for supplied file
		countAndPrintLineWord("D://WORKSPACE/TEST_WORKSPACE/"
				+ "Java_8_Project/BRN.txt");
	}

	/**
	 * this method count &
	 * prints number of lines & words in a text file
	 * @param fileName
	 * @throws IOException
	 * @throws FileNotFoundException
	 */
	public static void countAndPrintLineWord(String fileName) {

		// local variables
		String line = "";
		int lineCount = 0;
		int wordCount = 0 ;

		// Step 1: Read file from local drive location
		try(BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(
				new FileReader(fileName))) {

			// Step 2: Read line from file
			while ((line = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null) {

				// increase line count by 1
				lineCount++;

				// Step 3: split line using space as delimiter
				String[] words = line.split(" ");

				// Step 4 & 5: add word count length
				wordCount = wordCount + words.length;
			}

			// Step 6: print the count value of line & word
			System.out.println("Number of lines is : "
					+ lineCount);
			System.out.println("Number of words is : "
					+ wordCount);
		}
		catch (FileNotFoundException fnfex) {
			fnfex.printStackTrace();
		}
		catch (IOException ioex) {
			ioex.printStackTrace();
		}
	}
}

Output:

Number of lines is : 4
Number of words is : 41

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