How to extract CSV data and bind to bean?

[James Dekker]

Suppose, you have text file which contains the following data delimited by commas:

Nordstorms, Perfume, 2, $12.76, 2/13/1999
Macys, Lipstick, 1, $4.50, 2/13/1999
Dillards, Jeans, 3, $25.00, 2/13/1999

And you have constructed a POJO (bean) which looks like this:

public class LineItem {
    private String store;
    private String product;
    private int quantity;
    private String price;
    private Date purchaseDate;
 
    // Appropriate getter and setter methods
}

How can one go about loading this file into memory, extracting out the commas, and assigning the data to the correct properties inside LineItem?

Should it be done inside a Helper class that does both (File I/O and strips out the commas and then binds to the LineItem class)?

Or should it also include a 3rd class which binds to to an ArrayList<LineItem> lineItems which would set them to the appropriate properties?

Thanks,

[Remko Strating]

I would use the java.util.Scanner class.

The following link explains the working of the scanner class and gives you an example

Scanning text with java.util.Scanner