CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaswingfileinputstreamjtextarea
Frizinator
Frizinator

Reputation: 1411

How to read and display large text files in Swing?

This might sound a bit complicated, I'll try to simplify what I am asking. A program I am developing can read and write from/to files using a JTextArea. When files are rather large, it does take a cumbersome amount of time to read the data from that file into the text area. As an example, I have a file that currently has 40,000 lines of text, roughly 50 characters a line; also, some lines wrap. There is quite a lot of text and it takes a lot more time to read from that file then I would like.

Currently, I am using the standard read method utilizing a BufferedReader instance that the JTextArea component includes. What I would like to do is load the JTextArea with a certain amount of text loaded on screen. The rest of the text that is off-screen loaded in a separate thread in the background.

Would using a InputStream and write each character to an array then write characters to the JTextArea be sufficient? Or should there be a different approach at this? I'm trying to accomplish a fast and efficient read method.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 3446

Answers (1)

MadProgrammer
MadProgrammer

Reputation: 347314

There are two, immediate, issues at hand

First, the need to read a file in such away that it can progressively update the UI without causing unacceptable delays

Second, the ability for the JTextArea to actually deal with this amount of data...

The first issues is, relatively, simple to fix. What you need to make sure of is that you are not blocking the Event Dispatching Thread while you read the file and that you are only updating the JTextArea from within the context of the Event Dispatching Thread. To this end a SwingWorker is an excellent choice, for example...

public class FileReaderWorker extends SwingWorker<List<String>, String> {

    private File file;
    private JTextArea ta;

    public FileReaderWorker(File file, JTextArea ta) {
        this.file = file;
        this.ta = ta;
    }

    public File getFile() {
        return file;
    }

    public JTextArea getTextArea() {
        return ta;
    }

    @Override
    protected List<String> doInBackground() throws Exception {
        List<String> contents = new ArrayList<>(256);
        try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(getFile()))) {
            String text = null;
            while ((text = br.readLine()) != null) {
                // You will want to deal with adding back in the new line characters
                // here if that is important to you...
                contents.add(text);
                publish(text);
            }
        }
        return contents;
    }

    @Override
    protected void done() {
        try {
            get();
        } catch (InterruptedException | ExecutionException ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
            // Handle exception here...
        }
    }

    @Override
    protected void process(List<String> chunks) {
        JTextArea ta = getTextArea();
        for (String text : chunks) {
            ta.append(text);
        }
    }

}

Take a look at Concurrency in Swing and Worker Threads and SwingWorker for more details

ps- You don't need to use the List to store the contents, I just did it as an example...

The second problem is far more complicated and would need some additional testing to ensure that it is actually a problem, but generally speaking, contents of over about 1mb tends to lead to issues...

To this end, you would need to be able to manage the JScrollPane, be able to request chunks of text from the file both in backwards and forwards direction and try and effectively "fudge" the process (so that you only have the text you need loaded, but can still make it look like you have all the text loaded within the JTextArea)...

You could also take a look at FileChannel, which provides more functionality over the standard java.io classes, including memory mapping, for starters, have a look at Reading, Writing, and Creating Files.

You also might consider using a JList or JTable which are highly optimised for displaying large quantities of data. There are limitations to this, as there is an expectation of fixed row heights, which when changed (to dynamic row heights) can affect the performance, but might be a suitable alternative...

Upvotes: 7

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