// Converts the contents of a file into a CharSequence
// suitable for use by the regex package.
public CharSequence fromFile(String filename) throws IOException {
    FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(filename);
    FileChannel fc = fis.getChannel();

    // Create a read-only CharBuffer on the file
    ByteBuffer bbuf = fc.map(FileChannel.MapMode.READ_ONLY, 0, (int)fc.size());
    CharBuffer cbuf = Charset.forName("8859_1").newDecoder().decode(bbuf);
    return cbuf;
}