public static String loadTextFile(String fileName, String defaultContents) throws IOException {
    if (!new File(fileName).exists())
      return defaultContents;

    FileInputStream fileInputStream = new FileInputStream(fileName);
    InputStreamReader inputStreamReader = new InputStreamReader(fileInputStream, "UTF-8");
    return loadTextFile(inputStreamReader);
  }

  public static String loadTextFile(Reader reader) throws IOException {
    StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
    try {
      BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(reader);
      String line;
      while ((line = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null)
        builder.append(line).append('\n');
    } finally {
      reader.close();
    }
    return builder.length() == 0 ? "" : builder.substring(0, builder.length()-1);
  }

Began life as a copy of #2000321