Java FileReader: Read Character Files Guide

The FileReader class in Java is used for reading character files. It inherits from the InputStreamReader class and is capable of converting byte streams to character streams.

One common usage of the FileReader class is to read the content of a file character by character.

1. Instantiate a FileReader object:
2. Create a FileReader object called reader that reads from the file named “filename.txt”.
3. Read the content of the file:
4. Retrieve a single character using the read() method: int charCode = reader.read();
5. Read characters into a character array using the read(char[] cbuf) method: char[] buffer = new char[1024];
   int numCharsRead = reader.read(buffer);
6. Read a specified length of character array using the read(char[] cbuf, int offset, int length) method: char[] buffer = new char[1024];
   int numCharsRead = reader.read(buffer, 0, 1024);
7. Close the FileReader object.
8. Close the reader.

It’s important to note that when using FileReader to read a file, it may throw an IOException and requires exception handling.

Furthermore, in order to improve reading efficiency, FileReader is typically wrapped with the BufferedReader class to enhance performance by using a buffer.