any supergeeks? (computer question)

Okay, I'm working on a project for my research.  I need to take a csv file and have it plotted.  It has to be done through a web interface, so I'm going to using a java based client to do it.  Here's something similar to what it is:

hourly weather graph

I have no problem with the actual layout or the graphing element.  The issue I'm facing is the importing of the data.  I have no done a lot of work with straight java (which that is).  I am familiar with the action script language in flash, which is OEP and just a basterdized version of java. 

With flash, it's fairly easy to import XML data bases, and I can easily convert CSV to XML.  Howver reading in unformatted text files into Flash is a royal pain.

I have never worked with XML before.  I've been looking at it and it seems intuitive enough.

So does anyone have any experience with java and/or flash specifically with the issue of reading in server based files?  Any links to web refferences would be really nice.  I know google will give me a lot, unfortunatly that is a lot that I have to wade through to find what I need.