java.io.Reader class
are deliberately similar to the methods of the java.io.InputStream class. However rather than working with bytes, they work with chars.
The basic read() method reads a single character (which may may take between one and four bytes depending on the character set) and returns the character as an int between 0 and 65535. It returns -1 if the end of stream is seen.
public int read() throws IOException
public int read(char[] text) throws IOException
public abstract int read(char[] text, int offset, int length)
throws IOException
read() methods block until some input is
available, an I/O error occurs, or the end of the stream is reached.
You can skip a certain number of characters. This method also blocks until some characters are available. It returns the number of characters skipped or -1 if the end of stream is reached.
public long skip(long n) throws IOException
ready() method returns true if the Reader is ready to be read from, false if it isn't. Generally this means the underying stream has available data.
public boolean ready() throws IOException
markSupported() method returns true if the underlying
streams supports marking and resetting, false if it doesn't
public boolean markSupported()
public void mark(int readAheadLimit) throws IOException
public void reset() throws IOException
close() method closes the Reader and releases any resources
associated with it.
public abstract void close() throws IOException