Reading data from a CSV file is a common task in Java programming. In this post, we’ll learn how to read a CSV file, parse its contents, and store the data into an ArrayList of objects.

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✅ CSV Example

Let’s assume you have a file called employees.csv with the following content:

id,name,department
1,John Doe,Engineering
2,Jane Smith,Marketing
3,Robert Brown,Finance

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📦 Step 1: Create a Java Class

We’ll start by defining an Employee class to represent each row of the CSV file.

public class Employee {
    private int id;
    private String name;
    private String department;

    public Employee(int id, String name, String department) {
        this.id = id;
        this.name = name;
        this.department = department;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return id + ", " + name + ", " + department;
    }
}

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🧑‍💻 Step 2: Read the CSV and Convert to ArrayList

Here’s a complete example using BufferedReader:

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;

public class CSVReaderExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String filePath = "employees.csv";
        List<Employee> employees = new ArrayList<>();

        try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(filePath))) {
            String line;
            boolean header = true;

            while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
                if (header) {
                    header = false; // skip header line
                    continue;
                }

                String[] parts = line.split(",");
                int id = Integer.parseInt(parts[0]);
                String name = parts[1];
                String department = parts[2];

                employees.add(new Employee(id, name, department));
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        // Print all employees
        for (Employee emp : employees) {
            System.out.println(emp);
        }
    }
}

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📊 Output

The output will look like:

1, John Doe, Engineering
2, Jane Smith, Marketing
3, Robert Brown, Finance

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📝 Notes:

• The CSV file must be placed in your project root directory or use the full path.
• You can use String.split() for simple CSVs, but for more complex files with quoted fields or commas in values, consider using libraries like OpenCSV.

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📦 Bonus: Add Table Format for Display (Optional)

If you want a cleaner display:

System.out.printf("%-5s %-20s %-15s\n", "ID", "Name", "Department");
for (Employee emp : employees) {
    System.out.printf("%-5d %-20s %-15s\n", emp.id, emp.name, emp.department);
}

Output Table:

ID    Name                 Department     
1     John Doe            Engineering    
2     Jane Smith          Marketing      
3     Robert Brown        Finance        

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This approach is great for learning file handling and object-oriented parsing in Java. Let me know if you want the same using OpenCSV or other libraries!