What is the best way to count lines in file?

Java program that can count lines, words, and characters?

• I am trying to write a code that read a document (text file in this case) and return how many words, characters, and lines there are in the document. In this code, when there is one line, the words and lines count correctly, but when there is more than one line, both values return 0. Here is the code: import java.io.*; import java.util.*; public class countingWords { private static int wordCount; private static int lineCount; public static void main (String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException { Scanner inputLine = new Scanner(new File("essay.txt")); File f = new File("essay.txt"); words(inputLine); lines(inputLine); System.out.println("Words: " + wordCount); System.out.println("Lines: " + lineCount); System.out.println("Characters: " + f.length()); } public static int words(Scanner input) { while (input.hasNext()) { input.next(); wordCount++; } return wordCount; } public static int lines(Scanner input) { while (input.hasNextLine()) { String word = input.nextLine(); lineCount++; } return lineCount; } } I'm not sure why it's doing that. This is how part of the code is in the textbook I am using (Building Java Programs 2nd Edition). Can someone explain why it's doing that?

• Answer:

  Here's one thing about scanner object, you call words(inputLine) and inside that method it'll call next() till there is no next. So when you call lines(inputLine) there will be no next so lines won't actually do anything but returning 0. If you put lines(inputLine) above words(inputLine) the same thing will happen. you'll get 0 for words and number of lines. I made some modifications and it does the job now: import java.io.*; import java.util.*; public class countingWords { private static int wordCount; private static int lineCount; public static void main (String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException { Scanner inputLine = new Scanner(new File("essay.txt")); File f = new File("essay.txt"); //words(inputLine); lines(inputLine); System.out.println("Words: " + wordCount); System.out.println("Lines: " + lineCount); System.out.println("Characters: " + f.length()); } public static int words(String input) { String[] wrds = input.split(" "); wordCount += wrds.length + 1; return wordCount; } public static int lines(Scanner input) { while (input.hasNextLine()) { String line = input.nextLine(); words(line); lineCount++; } return lineCount; } }