Using Files.newBufferedReader with a try-with-resources block is the best practice for reading files in Java. Since BufferedReader implements AutoCloseable, the try-with-resources statement ensures that the file handle is automatically closed when the block is finished, even if an exception occurs.

Here is how you can implement it:

Basic Usage

This is the simplest way to read a file line-by-line using the default UTF-8 charset.

package org.kodejava.nio;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.Paths;

public class ReadFileExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Path path = Paths.get("example.txt");

        // The resource is declared inside the try parentheses
        try (BufferedReader reader = Files.newBufferedReader(path)) {
            String line;
            while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
                System.out.println(line);
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            // Handle potential issues like a file not found or access errors
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

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Key Highlights

• Automatic Cleanup: You don’t need a finally block to call reader.close().
• Charset Support: If your file uses a specific encoding (like ISO-8859-1), you can pass it as a second argument:

  try (BufferedReader reader = Files.newBufferedReader(path, StandardCharsets.ISO_8859_1)) { ... }
  

• Modern Alternative: Since you are using Java 25, if you want to read all lines into a stream for processing, you can use the lines() method inside the block:

  try (BufferedReader reader = Files.newBufferedReader(path)) {
      reader.lines().forEach(System.out::println);
  }
  

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Why use Files.newBufferedReader over new BufferedReader(new FileReader(...))?

1. Path API: It works seamlessly with java.nio.file.Path, which is more robust than the old File class.
2. Explicit Charset: It defaults to UTF-8 (unlike older methods which might use the system’s default encoding), making your code more portable.
3. Better Error Handling: It provides more descriptive IOException subclasses (like NoSuchFileException).