A comma-separated values (CSV) file is just a normal plain-text file, store data in column by column, and split it by a separator (e.g comma “,”). For example :
US,United States
MY,Malaysia
In this tutorial, we show you how to read, parse and print out the values from a csv file.

1. CSV file

Get a country CVS file sample from http://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geolite
GeoIPCountryWhois.cvs
"1.0.0.0","1.0.0.255","16777216","16777471","AU","Australia"
"1.0.1.0","1.0.3.255","16777472","16778239","CN","China"
"1.0.4.0","1.0.7.255","16778240","16779263","AU","Australia"
"1.0.8.0","1.0.15.255","16779264","16781311","CN","China"
"1.0.16.0","1.0.31.255","16781312","16785407","JP","Japan"
"1.0.32.0","1.0.63.255","16785408","16793599","CN","China"
"1.0.64.0","1.0.127.255","16793600","16809983","JP","Japan"
"1.0.128.0","1.0.255.255","16809984","16842751","TH","Thailand"
//... skip, too large

2. Example 1

Extracts the country code and country name from above CVS file, and print it out. No magic, just read a text file, and spits it by a separator – “,”.
ReadCVS.java
package com.mkyong.util;
 
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
 
public class ReadCVS {
 
  public static void main(String[] args) {
 
 ReadCVS obj = new ReadCVS();
 obj.run();
 
  }
 
  public void run() {
 
 String csvFile = "/Users/mkyong/Downloads/GeoIPCountryWhois.csv";
 BufferedReader br = null;
 String line = "";
 String cvsSplitBy = ",";
 
 try {
 
  br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(csvFile));
  while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
 
          // use comma as separator
   String[] country = line.split(cvsSplitBy);
 
   System.out.println("Country [code= " + country[4] 
                                 + " , name=" + country[5] + "]");
 
  }
 
 } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
  e.printStackTrace();
 } catch (IOException e) {
  e.printStackTrace();
 } finally {
  if (br != null) {
   try {
    br.close();
   } catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
   }
  }
 }
 
 System.out.println("Done");
  }
 
}
Output
Country [code= "AU" , name="Australia"]
Country [code= "CN" , name="China"]
Country [code= "AU" , name="Australia"]
Country [code= "CN" , name="China"]
Country [code= "JP" , name="Japan"]
Country [code= "CN" , name="China"]
Country [code= "JP" , name="Japan"]
Country [code= "TH" , name="Thailand"]
//skip

3. Example 2

This example show you how to use Map to remove the duplicated country code and country name.
ReadCVS.java
package com.mkyong.util;
 
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
 
public class ReadCVS {
 
  public static void main(String[] args) {
 
 ReadCVS obj = new ReadCVS();
 obj.run();
 
  }
 
  public void run() {
 
 String csvFile = "/Users/mkyong/Downloads/GeoIPCountryWhois.csv";
 BufferedReader br = null;
 String line = "";
 String cvsSplitBy = ",";
 
 try {
 
  Map<String, String> maps = new HashMap<String, String>();
 
  br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(csvFile));
  while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
 
   // use comma as separator
   String[] country = line.split(cvsSplitBy);
 
   maps.put(country[4], country[5]);
 
  }
 
  //loop map
  for (Map.Entry<String, String> entry : maps.entrySet()) {
 
   System.out.println("Country [code= " + entry.getKey() + " , name="
    + entry.getValue() + "]");
 
  }
 
 } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
  e.printStackTrace();
 } catch (IOException e) {
  e.printStackTrace();
 } finally {
  if (br != null) {
   try {
    br.close();
   } catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
   }
  }
 }
 
 System.out.println("Done");
  }
 
}
Output
Country [code= "AU" , name="Australia"]
Country [code= "CN" , name="China"]
Country [code= "JP" , name="Japan"]
Country [code= "TH" , name="Thailand"]
//skip