Sounds exactly like what a JSP server does, though it can do a lot more and may be
overkill.

Does it make sense to use XML in your application?
You could use a DTD instead of your .txt templates and
XML-files instead of your .txt-files.
And you get a good parser by using Apache's SAX parser.

HTH
 Stefan

Martin, why don't you try using java's StringTokenzer (in the util
package). Also if you are trying to extract certain tags from a text
file, then you should consider using an xml file with either SAX, DOM,
or java's xml parser.

Hope this helps,
Daniel Goldman
http://d-goldman.org

jflex is a lightweight easy to use parser - depending upon your application
and the complexity of the data.

The easy way is to use XML then use any XML parser.  See
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/xml.html  The problem is the format is
verbose.

To roll your own parser, see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/parser.html

If CSV will suffice, try http://mindprod.com/jgloss/csv.html

--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming.
See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html for The Java Glossary.

The XML option is certainly viable if it only needs to be Human readable vs
Human formatted, and XML is a leveragable skill that can be used in all
sorts of areas, so it worth learning for more than just this simple project.

However, another generic utility is Jakarta Velocity project. While in some
sense it may be a bit of overkill (as it's really a lightweight scripting
language), Velocity is bone simple to use. You can have your own sample
coded and running in 15 minutes. Vastly more easy than a generic XML
framework.

Regards,

Will Hartung
(willh@msoft.com)

FreeMarker does something like this:

``FreeMarker is a "template engine"; a generic tool to generate text
 output (anything from HTML or RTF to autogenerated source code) based
 on templates.''

http://freemarker.sourceforge.net/