Is it smarter to stream large lines from an external .txt file, or just directly encode them?

Question

I work in Java, although I'm sure this question applies to several other languages ​​and situations.

If I occasionally show large chunks of text in JTextPane ,

Is it better to write them to a .txt file and periodically call the Scanner to read the specified file and throw it into JTextPane,

OR should I just write the text directly in my code as lines, and then they are displayed in JTextPane?

Is one method more correct than another? I know that the “write everything to code” method will ultimately give me HUGE methods and some ugly code than I'm used to. However, some situations require the inclusion or exclusion of different bits of text.

In case the desired application simplifies the answer to the question, I play when creating a text adventure with RPG elements in order to practice Java coding. Not at all professional, just a conceptual practice. So I have to alternate between larger pieces of stories and smaller questions and situations depending on the player’s previous choice.

I am new to dealing with a lot of text in my coding, so thanks to everyone who answers!

Answer 1

It is always better to have it in a separate file, preferably in the JAR itself, so you can easily achieve it with getResourceAsStream() .

Then you can easily edit this file without using the code, and it can also be changed after the application is compiled into a JAR.

It is good practice to separate logic from data in general.

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Here are some methods from my FileUtils class that you might like:

 public static String streamToString(InputStream in) { BufferedReader br = null; StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); String line; try { br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in)); while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) { sb.append(line + "\n"); } } catch (IOException e) { Log.e(e); } finally { if (br != null) { try { br.close(); } catch (IOException e) { Log.e(e); } } } return sb.toString(); } public static InputStream stringToStream(String text) { try { return new ByteArrayInputStream(text.getBytes("UTF-8")); } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) { Log.e(e); return null; } } public static InputStream getResource(String path) { return FileUtils.class.getResourceAsStream(path); } 

You can also use the SimpleConfig class to parse lists and maps from files:
(comment out the Log.something calls and replace System.err.println ())

 package net.mightypork.rpack.utils; import java.io.File; import java.io.IOException; import java.util.ArrayList; import java.util.LinkedHashMap; import java.util.List; import java.util.Map; import java.util.Map.Entry; /** * Utility for parsing simple config files<br> * # and // mark a comment<br> * empty lines and lines without "=" are ignored<br> * lines with "=" must have "key = value" format, or a warning is logged.<br> * use "NULL" to create empty value. * * @author MightyPork */ public class SimpleConfig { /** * Load list from file * * @param file file * @return map of keys and values * @throws IOException */ public static List<String> listFromFile(File file) throws IOException { String fileText = FileUtils.fileToString(file); return listFromString(fileText); } /** * Load map from file * * @param file file * @return map of keys and values * @throws IOException */ public static Map<String, String> mapFromFile(File file) throws IOException { String fileText = FileUtils.fileToString(file); return mapFromString(fileText); } /** * Load list from string * * @param text text of the file * @return map of keys and values */ public static List<String> listFromString(String text) { List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>(); String[] groupsLines = text.split("\n"); for (String s : groupsLines) { // ignore invalid lines if (s.length() == 0) continue; if (s.startsWith("#") || s.startsWith("//")) continue; // NULL value if (s.equalsIgnoreCase("NULL")) s = null; if (s != null) s = s.replace("\\n", "\n"); // save extracted key-value pair list.add(s); } return list; } /** * Load map from string * * @param text text of the file * @return map of keys and values */ public static Map<String, String> mapFromString(String text) { LinkedHashMap<String, String> pairs = new LinkedHashMap<String, String>(); String[] groupsLines = text.split("\n"); for (String s : groupsLines) { // ignore invalid lines if (s.length() == 0) continue; if (s.startsWith("#") || s.startsWith("//")) continue; if (!s.contains("=")) continue; // split and trim String[] parts = s.split("="); for (int i = 0; i < parts.length; i++) { parts[i] = parts[i].trim(); } // check if both parts are valid if (parts.length == 0) { Log.w("Bad line in config file: " + s); continue; } if (parts.length == 1) { parts = new String[] { parts[0], "" }; } if (parts.length != 2) { Log.w("Bad line in config file: " + s); continue; } // NULL value if (parts[0].equalsIgnoreCase("NULL")) parts[0] = null; if (parts[1].equalsIgnoreCase("NULL")) parts[1] = null; if (parts[0] != null) parts[0] = parts[0].replace("\\n", "\n"); if (parts[1] != null) parts[1] = parts[1].replace("\\n", "\n"); // save extracted key-value pair pairs.put(parts[0], parts[1]); } return pairs; } /** * Save map to file * * @param target * @param data * @throws IOException */ public static void mapToFile(File target, Map<String, String> data) throws IOException { String text = ""; //# File written by SimpleConfig for (Entry<String, String> e : data.entrySet()) { if (text.length() > 0) text += "\n"; String key = e.getKey(); String value = e.getValue(); if (key == null) key = "NULL"; if (value == null) value = "NULL"; key = key.replace("\n", "\\n"); value = value.replace("\n", "\\n"); text += key + " = " + value; } FileUtils.stringToFile(target, text); } /** * Save list to file * * @param target * @param data * @throws IOException */ public static void listToFile(File target, List<String> data) throws IOException { String text = ""; //# File written by SimpleConfig for (String s : data) { if (text.length() > 0) text += "\n"; if (s == null) s = "NULL"; s = s.replace("\n", "\\n"); text += s; } FileUtils.stringToFile(target, text); } } 

Answer 2

It is better to have a separate file. One of the reasons is that at some point you would like to translate your game into different languages.