protected int skipWhitespace(int c) throws IOException {
  while (c == ' ' || c == '\t') {
    c=reader.read();
  }
  return c;
}

protected int skipWhitespace ( int c ) throws IOException { while ( c == ' ' || c == '\t' ) { c = reader . read ( ) ; } return c ; }
reads characters from reader until it finds a character that is not a space or tab , and returns this last character . in case the end of the character stream has been reached , - 1 is returned .
