Java two different documents, done stuff but now they are one.. want them separate

Question

Here is all of my code for you guys to see, I will explain the problem below:

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;

public class Plagiarism {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        Plagiarism myPlag = new Plagiarism();

        if  (args.length == 0) {
            System.out.println("Error: No files input");
        }
        else if (args.length > 0) {
            try {
                for (int i = 0; i < args.length; i++) {
                    BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader (new FileReader (args[i]));
                    List<String> foo = simplify(reader);
                        for (int j = 0; j < foo.size(); j++) {
                            System.out.print(foo.get(j));
                        }
                }
            }
            catch (Exception e) {
                System.err.println ("Error reading from file");
            }
        }
    }

    public static List<String> simplify(BufferedReader input) throws IOException {
        String line = null;
        List<String> myList = new ArrayList<String>();

        while ((line = input.readLine()) != null) {
            myList.add(line.replaceAll("[^a-zA-Z0-9]","").toLowerCase().trim());
        }
        return myList;  
    }

}

Right, what this does is print out this:

abcdefabcd123abcdz456aabcdd

This result is actually two separate documents, text1.txt and text2.txt combined into one line on the cmd. What I need is these two documents to be standardised and then printing out as seperate elements for each value they each hold, rather than all together as one, because I need to then use them as 2 separate things (or objects) for the next part of my code.

Hopefully this is not too confusing and you clever people can help me out! Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You are just printing out the result, so as it runs through the loop, it will print it all out on one line.

You could store the results in a separate array, or you could just do this to have them each print on a different line:

            for (int i = 0; i < args.length; i++) {
                BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader (new FileReader (args[i]));
                List<String> foo = simplify(reader);
                    for (int j = 0; j < foo.size(); j++) {
                        System.out.print(foo.get(j));
                    }
                System.out.println();
            }

The new println will separate each entry.

Answer 2

check this one will print data line by line

abcdefabcd123

abcdz456aabcdd

   public static void main(String[] args) {

    Plagiarism myPlag = new Plagiarism();

    if  (args.length == 0) {
        System.out.println("Error: No files input");
    }
    else if (args.length > 0) {
        try {
            for (int i = 0; i < args.length; i++) {
                BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader (new FileReader (args[i]));
                List<String> foo = simplify(reader);
                    for (int j = 0; j < foo.size(); j++) {
                        System.out.print(foo.get(j));
                    }
                   System.out.println();
            }
        }
        catch (Exception e) {
            System.err.println ("Error reading from file");
        }
    }
}

public static List<String> simplify(BufferedReader input) throws IOException {
    String line = null;
    List<String> myList = new ArrayList<String>();

    while ((line = input.readLine()) != null) {
        myList.add(line.replaceAll("[^a-zA-Z0-9]","").toLowerCase().trim());
    }
    return myList;  
}

}

Answer 3

It gets printed into one line because you use System.out.print(), you could just use System.out.println() if you want to start a new line with each output.

But that is just a problem of the output. Internally you already have the data separated in your list, so what is your actual problem?

Answer 4

If you want to hold the file contents in two different objects do the following..

List<ArrayList<String>> files = new ArrayList<ArrayList<String>>();

for (int i = 0; i < args.length; i++) {
    BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader (new FileReader (args[i]));
    files.add(simplify(reader));

    for(ArrayList<String> al : files)
    {
        for (int j = 0; j < al.size(); j++) {
            System.out.print(al.get(j));
        }
            System.out.println();
    }

}

and change your second method to

public static ArrayList<String> simplify(BufferedReader input) throws IOException