 <p>If you don't wan't to write code at all, just use the <a href="http://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-io/apidocs/org/apache/commons/io/FileUtils.html" rel="nofollow">FileUtils-class</a>. </p> <pre><code>import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils; ... public void yourMethod() { List&lt;String&gt; lines = FileUtils.readLines(yourFile); } </code></pre>