How to read a CSV file via Java

In this blog post, I will be covering how you can read a CSV file via Java.

What is a CSV file?

CSV stands for Comma Separated Values.  The fields in a CSV file are separated by commas.  So for example, a CSV file will be seen in Notepad as follows:

However, if you open the same CSV file in Excel and will be seen as follows:

A CSV file is used to store tabular data. You can open a CSV file in Microsoft Excel.

Code to read CSV file

Consider the following code sample:

package learnjava.io;

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

public class ReadCSVDemo {

public static void main(String[] args) {
String fileName="F:/Test.csv";
try {
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(fileName));
String str = br.readLine();
while(str != null){
String[] contents = str.split(",");
for(String cell:contents){
System.out.print(cell);
}
str = br.readLine();
System.out.println();
}


} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
catch (IOException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}

}

}

First, the input file is read line by line using a BufferedReader. Each line is split using the String,split method and its contents are printed.