private String readNextLine(BufferedReader in) throws Exception
	{
		String str = null;
		boolean proceed;

		// Read in lines from the input stream ignoring lines that are empty or
		// start with the "#" character

		do
		{
			proceed = false;

			str = in.readLine();
			str = str.trim();

			if(str.startsWith("#") || str.matches(""))
				proceed = true;

		} while (proceed);

		return str;
	}