How do I write a Java text file viewer for big log files
- by Hannes de Jager
I am working on a software product with an integrated log file viewer. Problem is, its slow and unstable for really large files because it reads the whole file into memory when you view a log file. I'm wanting to write a new log file viewer that addresses this problem.
What are the best practices for writing viewers for large text files? How does editors like notepad++ and VIM acomplish this? I was thinking of using a buffered Bi-directional text stream reader together with Java's TableModel. Am I thinking along the right lines and are such stream implementations available for Java?