java read into_Java How to read a file into a list?

In Java, there are few ways to read a file line by line into a List

1. Java 8 stream

List result;

try (Stream lines = Files.lines(Paths.get(fileName))) {

result = lines.collect(Collectors.toList());

2. Java 7

Files.readAllLines(new File(fileName).toPath(), Charset.defaultCharset());

3. Classic BufferedReader example.

List result = new ArrayList<>();

BufferedReader br = null;

try {

br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(fileName));

String line;

while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {

result.add(line);

} catch (IOException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

} finally {

if (br != null) {

br.close();

1. File -> List

1.1 A dummy file

d:\\server.log

1.2 Read file into a List

JavaExample.java

package com.mkyong.example;

import java.io.BufferedReader;

import java.io.File;

import java.io.FileReader;

import java.io.IOException;

import java.nio.charset.Charset;

import java.nio.file.Files;

import java.nio.file.Paths;

import java.util.ArrayList;

import java.util.List;

import java.util.stream.Collectors;

import java.util.stream.Stream;

public class JavaExample {

public static void main(String[] args) {

String filename = "d:\\server.log";

try {

List list = readByJavaClassic(filename);

list.forEach(System.out::println);

} catch (IOException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

private static List readByJava8(String fileName) throws IOException {

List result;

try (Stream lines = Files.lines(Paths.get(fileName))) {

result = lines.collect(Collectors.toList());

return result;

private static List readByJava7(String fileName) throws IOException {

return Files.readAllLines(new File(fileName).toPath(), Charset.defaultCharset());

private static List readByJavaClassic(String fileName) throws IOException {

List result = new ArrayList<>();

BufferedReader br = null;

try {

br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(fileName));

String line;

while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {

result.add(line);

} catch (IOException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

} finally {

if (br != null) {

br.close();

return result;

Output

References