java process multiple string arguments

Question

I have the following code in java:

public void loadFiles(String file_1, String file_2) throws FileNotFoundException, IOException {

    String line_file1;
    String line_file2;
    BufferedReader buf_file1 = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(new File(file_1)));
    BufferedReader buf_file2 = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(new File(file_2)));

}

Now when he runs this process, he expects both a file_1 and file_2. But I also want to make it go through when there is only a file_1. How should I specify this?

Answer 1

You can use varargs :

public void loadFiles(String... fileNames) throws FileNotFoundException, IOException {
    BufferedReader[] buf_file = new BufferedReader[fileNames.length];
    for (int i = 0; i < fileNames.length; i++) {
        buf_file[i] = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(new File(fileNames[i])));
    }
}

Which allows your method to be called with any number of file names :

loadFiles("a.txt");
loadFiles("a.txt", "b.txt");
...

No need for unnecessary method overloading when there's a simple alternative.