I'm trying to read in a small order form in java.

I don't exactly understand how you can read in specific parts of the txt file.

Like I'm trying to read in an order form something like this (it's contained in a .txt file), where the item name is listed with the date it was purchased.

Customer: Joe
Phone 1/1
Shoes 10/5
Candy 4/14
Phone 3/25
Toothbrush 7/5
Lamp 8/22

Kinda confused on how the FileReader accomplishes this.

I have to print out the customers named, followed by the amount he ordered and it's total cost.

Just don't know how it knows how to take in the correct information.

This post was edited by lopelurag on Jul 23 2012 04:35pm

the secret is that you read the whole file, then parse the string later.

Oh so you would turn it into a string then parse the information you need? What if you don't know what the user will input, does that even matter?

This is all done automatically and I'm confused about how to make sure the program parses the correct information.

assuming the format is guarenteed, it should be straight forward. looks like you have one line with the customer name. this is the only line that contains a colon. so if this line contains a colon, then everything to the right is the name.

every other line ends with X/X where X represents a number. so look for the last space to split the date from the product.

whats the problem?

Yeah got it thanks, was having a brainfart. Wasn't difficult at all.