public static Person searchFileSequentially(
                     String fileName, String desiredName) {
// --------------------------------------------------------
// Searches a text file sequentially for a desired person.
// Precondition: fileName is the name of a text file of
// names and data about people. Each person is represented
// by two lines in the file: The first line contains the
// person's name, and the second line contains the person's
// salary. desiredName is the name of the person sought.
// Postcondition: If desiredName was found in the file,
// a Person object that contains the person's
// name and data is returned. Otherwise, the value null
// is returned to indicate that the desiredName was not
// found. The file is unchanged and closed.
// --------------------------------------------------------
  BufferedReader ifStream = null;
  try {
    ifStream = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(fileName));
    String nextName = null;
    String nextSalary = null;
    boolean found = false;
    while (!found &&
           (nextName = ifStream.readLine()) != null) {
      nextSalary = ifStream.readLine();
      if (nextName.compareTo(desiredName) == 0) {
        found = true;
      } // end if
    } // end while

    if (found) {
      return new Person(nextName,
                        Double.parseDouble(nextSalary));
    }
    else {
      return null;
    } // end if
  } // end try
  catch (IOException e) {
    System.out.println("Error processing file");
	 return null;
  } // end catch
  finally {
    if (ifStream != null) {
      try {
        ifStream.close(); // close the file
      } 
      catch (IOException e) {
        System.out.println("Error closing file...");
      }
    } // end if
  } // end finally
} // end searchFileSequentially