Spring batch reads line by line and processes line by line. However, to optimize the writing we write all of the chunk at once. If you want to process your file line by line, committing (and therefore writing) each line one at a time, all you need to do is change the commit-interval to 1.
You can read more about how to get started using Spring Batch with this Getting Started Guide from Spring: http://spring.io/guides/gs/batch-processing/