View Poll Results: Scanner or BufferedReader?
Scanner	3	33.33%
BufferedReader	6	66.67%
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Jan 22nd, 2009

Scanner or BufferedReader ?

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This is not much of a question, but a discussion and searching for opinions. I have seen that many use the Scanner class for getting input from the keyboard. Some, like myself, use the BufferedReader.

Why will someone use one over the other?

Or they both do the same thing when it comes something simple as that and their real difference is when it comes to using them for something more complex?

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Jan 22nd, 2009

Re: Scanner or BufferedReader ?

Well im voting for the scanner. Thats how i learnt and thats how i go, i dont find anything wrong with it so i stay that way.. addmitedly i really dont know a thing about Buffered Reader anyway, so it could be loads better for all i know.

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Jan 22nd, 2009

Re: Scanner or BufferedReader ?

Click to Expand / Collapse Quote originally posted by paulthom12345 ...

Well im voting for the scanner. Thats how i learnt and thats how i go, i dont find anything wrong with it so i stay that way.. addmitedly i really dont know a thing about Buffered Reader anyway, so it could be loads better for all i know.

Ditto... If i ever begin to study BufferedReader I'll discuss it further. What are the differences anyway? Any one that is advanced plz reply?

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Jan 22nd, 2009

Re: Scanner or BufferedReader ?

Neither one. I don't write console applications.

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Jan 22nd, 2009

Re: Scanner or BufferedReader ?

Ehmmm where do I find this in Java Microedition?

Neither me. For now I work in JME, Swing or Web Development so no.

Last edited by peter_budo; Jan 22nd, 2009 at 3:57 pm.

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Jan 22nd, 2009

Re: Scanner or BufferedReader ?

I used to use the buffered reader in September but I started to find when in my contests that the Scanner is better.

Since I can read individual elements at a time, I don't have to worry about splitting and parsing into integers.

Say my input file is:

Quote ...

4 4
*...
....
.*..

With the buffered reader, I would have to read things in line at a time, split it up and parse it into integers. Thus the buffered reader seems to make input a lot tougher.

Buffered reader:

Java Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("DATA1.txt"));
String[] arsNums = br.readLine().split(" ");
int nX = Integer.parseInt(arsNums[0]);
int nY = Integer.parseInt(arsNums[1]);
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("DATA1.txt"));
String[] arsNums = br.readLine().split(" ");
int nX = Integer.parseInt(arsNums[0]);
int nY = Integer.parseInt(arsNums[1]);

With the scanner I don't have to read in each line as a string and parse it with the Integer class.

Scanner:

Java Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)
Scanner sin = new Scanner(new FileReader("DATA1.txt"));
        int nX = sin.nextInt();
        int nY = sin.nextInt();
        char[][] arcGrid = new char[nX][nY];
        String sLine = "";
 
        for (int x=0;x<nX;x++) {
            sLine = sin.next();
            for (int y=0;y<nY;y++) {
                arcGrid[x][y] = sLine.charAt(y);
            }
        }
Scanner sin = new Scanner(new FileReader("DATA1.txt"));
        int nX = sin.nextInt();
        int nY = sin.nextInt();
        char[][] arcGrid = new char[nX][nY];
        String sLine = "";

        for (int x=0;x<nX;x++) {
            sLine = sin.next();
            for (int y=0;y<nY;y++) {
                arcGrid[x][y] = sLine.charAt(y);
            }
        }

Also I can have Scanner that parses each individual element in a String. So the Scanner class is quite helpful - and in my opinion a lot better than the buffered reader.

Java Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)
String sText = "Four men went down to the store, to catch frogs!";
Scanner sin = new Scanner(sText);
while (sin.hasNext()) {
        System.out.println(sin.next());
}
String sText = "Four men went down to the store, to catch frogs!";
Scanner sin = new Scanner(sText);
while (sin.hasNext()) {
        System.out.println(sin.next());
}

Prints:

Quote ...

Four
men
went
down
to the
store,
to
catch
frogs!

So that is why I believe the Scanner class is better than the Buffered Reader.

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Jan 23rd, 2009

Re: Scanner or BufferedReader ?

Click to Expand / Collapse Quote originally posted by Ezzaral ...

Neither one. I don't write console applications.

I don't write console applications either but when I first begun I knew from my book only the BufferedReader. So since we've seen many students here asking how to read files and input from the console I thought to get other opinions and discuss the topic.

There has to be some reason why someone would choose to use one over the other

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Jan 23rd, 2009

Re: Scanner or BufferedReader ?

I guess it's just the matter of what you like, and on which is a lot easier. I have learn buffered reader. My prof. didn't teach us scanner. I heard about it from others that it is much easier to use, but i don't know. My prof. doesn't allow us to use scanner. I don't know why.

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Jan 23rd, 2009

Re: Scanner or BufferedReader ?

Click to Expand / Collapse Quote originally posted by javaAddict ...

I don't write console applications either but when I first begun I knew from my book only the BufferedReader.

That was most probably because when we learnt Java, java.util.Scanner did not exist.
I started learning Java from the 1.4.2 version of the JDK, and Scanner was introduced only in the 1.5 version and since console input is not so widely used by many of us, we opted to stick with good ol' BufferedReader.

Last edited by stephen84s; Jan 23rd, 2009 at 7:13 am.

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Jan 23rd, 2009

Re: Scanner or BufferedReader ?

Click to Expand / Collapse Quote originally posted by stephen84s ...

That was most probably because when we learnt Java, java.util.Scanner did not exist.
I started learning Java from the 1.4.2 version of the JDK, and Scanner was introduced only in the 1.5 version and since console input is not so widely used by many of us, we opted to stick with good ol' BufferedReader.

Well the book I had was called Java 1.2. I don't remember what kind of java I had because I didn't know about versions but I believe I had Java Version 1.2

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