code: public static String readCharacters(
                      final File file
                      )
      throws IOException
      {
          Reader  reader = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader(
                          new FileInputStream( file ), Charset.forName( "UTF-8" ) ) );
          // Note:
          // The character set should be specified to parse XML
          // containing Japanese characters.
  
          StringWriter  sw = new StringWriter();
          Writer  writer = new BufferedWriter( sw );
  
          copy( reader, writer );
  
          String  characters = sw.toString();
  
          return characters;
      }
docs: Reads the contents characters from the file.
  
  @param file
  the input file.
  @return
  the read string.
  @throws IOException