How to find out which line separator BufferedReader#readLine() used to split the line?

Question

I am reading a file via the BufferedReader

String filename = ...
br = new BufferedReader( new FileInputStream(filename));
while (true) {
   String s = br.re         


        

Answer 1

Not sure if useful, but sometimes I need to find out the line delimiter after I've read the file already far-down the road.

In this case I use this code:

/**
* 
 Identify which line delimiter is used in a string 
*
* This is useful when processing files that were created on different operating systems.
*
* @param str - the string with the mystery line delimiter.
* @return  the line delimiter for windows, {@code \r\n}, 

*           unix/linux {@code \n} or legacy mac {@code \r} 

*           if none can be identified, it falls back to unix {@code \n}
*/
public static String identifyLineDelimiter(String str) {
    if (str.matches("(?s).*(\\r\\n).*")) {     //Windows //$NON-NLS-1$
        return "\r\n"; //$NON-NLS-1$
    } else if (str.matches("(?s).*(\\n).*")) { //Unix/Linux //$NON-NLS-1$
        return "\n"; //$NON-NLS-1$
    } else if (str.matches("(?s).*(\\r).*")) { //Legacy mac os 9. Newer OS X use \n //$NON-NLS-1$
        return "\r"; //$NON-NLS-1$
    } else {
        return "\n";  //fallback onto '\n' if nothing matches. //$NON-NLS-1$
    }
}