Help: Read file, get #, set arry size, display #s,etc.

[Cain Silverbane]

Ok, here is the deal. I am getting ready for a test and trying to practice stuff, so the prof. gave me a lab. It is supposed to basically use a filename as a command line argument, read the #s in, and print them out in a neat 5 column style.
The #s are supposed to be sorted first, lowest to highest [without using arrays.sort()]. Also, the first # in the file needs to be set to the array length. He said to use Integer.toString() for spacing, and to make a reusable file-sorting object.
He also is letting us use a LineFilter class that we have made before in class (see below). If anyone can throw some code to give me an idea how to do it / start, I would appreciate it.

  
//******************
// LineFilter.java *
//******************
import java.io.*;
public class LineFilter
{
  private BufferedReader m_file;
  private String m_line;
  public LineFilter(String fileName)
  {
    setFile(fileName);
  }
  public LineFilter()
  {
    m_line = "";
  }
  public void setFile(String fileName)
  {
    try
    {
      m_file = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(fileName));
    }
    catch(IOException e)
    {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException (e.getMessage());
    }
  }
  public String readLine()
  {
    if (m_file == null)
      throw new IllegalStateException ("No such file!");
    try
    {
      do
      {
        int comments;
        m_line = m_file.readLine();
        comments = m_line.indexOf("#");
        if (comments >= 0)
        {
          m_line = m_line.substring(0, comments);
        }
      }while (m_line.compareTo("") == 0);
    }
    catch(IOException e)
    {
      return null;
    }
    return m_line;
  }
  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
    LineFilter filter = new LineFilter();
    for (int i=0; i<args.length; ++i)
    {
      try
      {
        filter.setFile(args[i]);
      }
      catch (RuntimeException e)
      {
        System.out.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
        continue;
      }
      String line = filter.readLine();
      while (line != null)
      {
        System.out.println(line);
        line = filter.readLine();
      }
    }
  }
}

[Cain Silverbane]

Hmm... still not getting anywhere. We are supposed to make LineFilter private and then create a main to do various things, as well as other methods... basically get the numbers from a file, sort em, print em... Ack.

[Dirk Schreckmann]

Which part(s) of the assignment are you having difficulty with? What have you tried so far?

[Cain Silverbane]

One of the main things Im having trouble with is getting the first number to be the size of the array, and the others to go into the array. A sorting method should be simple enough, and getting the display isn't worrying me too much.