How to Create Objects Using Records in a Text File (Java)

I'm working on a program for my Java class where I'm using a file of objects (clothing items) that represents inventory for a store. Each Retail_Item has four attributes: int itemNumber, String description, int numInInventory, and double price.

What I'm trying to figure out is how to read in each line from the file and turn each line into an object. My first thought was to create a while loop with vars like currentItemNumber, currentDescription, etc. So I tried this:

while (file.hasNextLine()) {
    currentItemNumber = file.nextInt();
    currentDescription = file.next

} // end while

But I got stuck there because every other time I've read in a String to a Scanner, I've always used nextLine. Can't use that here though, because each line contains multiple attributes of the object, not a String within a line. Is there a way to do this in the structure I'm trying to use, or should I be doing this a different way? I know I've seen and done some things where I parsed a String into separate pieces which I've seen people refer to as "tokens." Would people recommend reading each line in and then parsing it into separate tokens, then assigning each token to its appropriate attribute? Then I guess I'd have to cast those tokens into the appropriate object, since I think reading the whole line in and then parsing it would make each piece a String.

Here's a sample of what's in the text file (which can't be changed in any way, per the professor's instructions):

1000     Pants      10     19.99
2000     Jeans       2     25.95
3000     Shirt      12     12.50

Thanks in advance for your sage wisdom if you've got it.

The following code fulfills your requirement as stated in your question, namely how to create an instance of class RetailItem from a line of text from your text file. I presume it uses things that you may not have learned yet, like class Paths and try-with-resources. This is just used to scan through your file.

First, class RetailItem contains the members you described in your question. Next, I wrote a constructor for class RetailItem that creates a new instance and initializes the instance members. Then I wrote a toString() method that displays the contents of a RetailItem object in "human readable" form. Finally a main() method that reads your text file (which I named "clothes.txt"), line by line - using a Scanner. For each line read, the code splits it using a delimiter which consists of at least one whitespace character. (I presume you haven't yet learned about regular expressions in java.) Then I convert the elements of the String array returned by method split() into appropriate data types that are required by the RetailItem constructor. Then I call the constructor, thus creating an instance of class RetailItem (as you requested) and I print the created instance.

import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
import java.util.Scanner;

public class RetailItem {
    private static final int FIELDS = 4;

    private int itemNumber;
    private String description;
    private int numInInventory;
    private double price;

    public RetailItem(int itemNumber, String description, int numInInventory, double price) {
        this.itemNumber = itemNumber;
        this.description = description;
        this.numInInventory = numInInventory;
        this.price = price;
    }

    @Override // java.lang.Object
    public String toString() {
        return String.format("%4d %-5s %2d %2.2f", itemNumber, description, numInInventory, price);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try (Scanner file = new Scanner(Paths.get("clothes.txt"))) {
            while (file.hasNextLine()) {
                String record = file.nextLine();
                String[] fields = record.split("\\s+");
                if (fields.length == FIELDS) {
                    int itemNumber = Integer.parseInt(fields[0]);
                    String description = fields[1];
                    int numInInventory = Integer.parseInt(fields[2]);
                    double price = Double.parseDouble(fields[3]);
                    RetailItem item = new RetailItem(itemNumber, description, numInInventory, price);
                    System.out.println(item);
                }
            }
        }
        catch (IOException xIo) {
            xIo.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

I think the way that I would do is, like you said, parse each line into separate strings and then assign each piece to instance variables of the object you are building.

I have done something like this before, maybe it can be helpful.

        Scanner fileScan;
File babyNameFile = new File("yob2015.txt");
try {
fileScan = new Scanner(babyNameFile);
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
System.out.println("File does not exist");
return;
}
String currentLine;
int numberOfGirlsNames = 0;
while (fileScan.hasNextLine()) {
String[] values;
currentLine = fileScan.nextLine();
values = currentLine.split(",");
if (values[1].equals("F")) {
numberOfGirlsNames = numberOfGirlsNames+1;
}
}
System.out.println("Number of female names was "+numberOfGirlsNames);