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til/go/write-a-custom-scan-function-for-file-io.md

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# Write A Custom Scan Function For File IO
By default a [`bufio.Scanner`](https://pkg.go.dev/bufio#Scanner) will scan
input line-by-line. In other words, splitting on newlines such that each
iteration will emit everything up to the next newline character.
We can write our own `SplitFunc` and override the default one by calling
`scanner.Split` with it. Our custom scan function needs to match the type
signature of [`SplitFunc`](https://pkg.go.dev/bufio#SplitFunc).
Here is a custom one that emits each individual character but omits the
newlines.
```go
func ScanChar(data []byte, atEOF bool) (int, []byte, error) {
if atEOF || len(data) == 0 {
return 0, nil, nil
}
start := 0
for start < len(data) {
if !utf8.FullRune(data[start:]) {
return 0, nil, nil
}
r, size := utf8.DecodeRune(data[start:])
if r == utf8.RuneError {
return 0, nil, fmt.Errorf("invalid UTF-8 encoding")
}
if r != '\n' {
return start + size, data[start:start+size], nil
}
// found a \n, advance the start position
start += size
}
return start, nil, nil
}
```
We can then use thi `ScanChar` function with a `bufio.Scanner` like so:
```go
func ReadFileByCharacter(file io.Reader) {
scanner := bufio.NewScanner(file)
// override default SplitFunc
scanner.Split(scanChar)
for scanner.Scan() {
char := scanner.Text()
fmt.Printf("- %s\n", char)
}
}
```