import java.nio.ByteBuffer; import java.nio.CharBuffer; import java.nio.charset.Charset; import java.nio.charset.CharsetDecoder; import java.nio.charset.CharacterCodingException; public class TestAscii { public static void main (String args[]) throws Exception { BufferedReader re = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("infile.txt")); String test = re.readLine(); byte bytearray [] = test.getBytes(); System.out.println("Test string : " + test); CharsetDecoder d = Charset.forName("US-ASCII").newDecoder(); try { CharBuffer r = d.decode(ByteBuffer.wrap(bytearray)); r.toString(); } catch(CharacterCodingException e) { System.out.println("only regular ASCII characters please!"); // interrupt the processing throw new Exception(e); } System.out.println("Ok, it's ASCII only!"); } }