Drop part of a line

[E Jen]

I have some code written to read a chatlog file, one that you may find from an IM system. Most of the lines that are read look like this:

[10:34:46] MESSAGE HERE

How would I get it to drop the time stamp? The code I have currently written is:

import java.io.*; 
 
public class ChatRead implements Runnable { 
 
  String filename; 
 
  ChatRead(String name) { 
  filename = name; 
  }  
  public void run () { 
 
  File f = new File (filename); 
  BufferedReader in = null; 
  long prevmod = 0; 
  long prevlen = 0; 
  try { 
  in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(filename)); 
  prevmod = f.lastModified(); 
  prevlen = f.length(); 
  in.skip(prevlen); // start at the end 
  } catch (Exception ignore) { 
  in = null; 
  } 
  while (true) { 
  if (in == null) { 
  try { 
  in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(filename)); 
  prevmod = 0; 
  prevlen = 0; 
  } catch (java.io.FileNotFoundException e) { 
  // file isn't there. wait a sec and try again 
  in = null; 
  try { 
  Thread.sleep (1000); 
  } catch (java.lang.InterruptedException ignore) {  
  } 
  continue; 
  } 
  } 
 
  long mod = f.lastModified(); 
  long len = f.length(); 
 
  if (mod != prevmod || len != prevlen) { 
  if(len < prevlen) { 
  try { 
  in.close(); 
  } catch (Exception ignore) {}
  in = null; 
  continue; 
  } 
  // remember new location 
  prevmod = mod; 
  prevlen = len; 
  try {
  for (String line = getLine(in); line != null; line = getLine(in)) 
  System.out.println(line);
  } catch (java.io.IOException ignore) {
  try { 
  in.close(); 
  } catch (Exception ignore2) {} 
  in = null; 
  } 
 
  if (!f.canRead()) { 
  try { 
  in.close(); 
  } catch (Exception ignore) {} 
  in = null; 
  } 
 
  } else { 
  try { 
  Thread.sleep (1000); 
  } catch (java.lang.InterruptedException ignore) { 
  } 
  } 
  } 
  }  
  public String getLine(BufferedReader in) 
  throws java.io.IOException { 
  StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer(80); 
  int c; 
  char ch; 
  in.mark(1024); 
  while (true) { 
  c = in.read(); 
  if (c < 0) { 
  try { 
  in.reset(); 
  return null; 
  } catch (Exception ignore) { 
  return sb.toString(); 
  } 
  } 
 
  ch = (char)c; 
 
  if (ch == '\r') { 
  in.mark(3); 
  c = (char)in.read(); 
  if (c < 0) { 
  try { 
  in.reset(); 
  return null; 
  } catch (Exception ignore) { 
  return sb.toString(); 
  } 
  } 
 
  ch = (char)c; 
  // yup. return the line 
  if (ch == '\n') 
  return sb.toString(); 
  in.reset(); 
  return sb.toString(); 
  } 
  if (ch == '\n') 
  return sb.toString(); 
  sb.append(ch); 
  
  } 
  } 
  public static void main (String[] args) { 
 
  ChatRead chatRead = new ChatRead("loghere"); 
  Thread thread = new Thread(chatRead); 
  thread.start(); 
  try { 
  thread.join(); 
  
  } catch (java.lang.InterruptedException ignore) { 
  } 
  } 
}

[ October 22, 2006: Message edited by: E Jen ]

[Jim Yingst]

OK, this is weird. I see you have used code tags - good, thank you very much. And yet your code still seems to have almost no indentation. What's up? Do you not find it useful to indent your code to make it readable? I find it difficult to motivate myself to bother reading something if the author hasn't put at least a little effort into making it readable. Note that you can edit your post using the little icon at the top of the post. Thanks.

[Scott Johnson]

Use the methods available on the String object such as indexOf() and substring().

Or you can use regular expression to grab all of the characters after the sequence "] ".

[Ken Blair]

Considering the fact that in my experience in such a log file every single line is one message and the format is a strict [hh:mm:ss] where 9 is "09" it could be as simple as using String.substring(10) to get everything after the time stamp and the space which are a fixed size.

[E Jen]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
OK, this is weird. I see you have used code tags - good, thank you very much. And yet your code still seems to have almost no indentation. What's up? Do you not find it useful to indent your code to make it readable? I find it difficult to motivate myself to bother reading something if the author hasn't put at least a little effort into making it readable. Note that you can edit your post using the little icon at the top of the post. Thanks.

Sorry about that. Normally it is indented when I right it, somehow I messed that up. And thank you for all of your replies.