diff --git a/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/main/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizer.java b/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/main/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizer.java
index c4af0ffc9..da532470e 100644
--- a/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/main/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizer.java
+++ b/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/main/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizer.java
@@ -222,7 +222,7 @@ public class DelimitedLineTokenizer extends AbstractLineTokenizer
 
         String value;
 
-        if ((chars.length > 2) && (chars[start] == quoteCharacter) && (chars[start + len - 1] == quoteCharacter)) {
+        if ((chars.length >= 2) && (chars[start] == quoteCharacter) && (chars[start + len - 1] == quoteCharacter)) {
             value = new String(chars, start + 1, len - 2);
             if (value.contains(escapedQuoteString)) {
                 value = StringUtils.replace(value, escapedQuoteString, quoteString);
diff --git a/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/test/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizerTests.java b/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/test/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizerTests.java
index f10cd6761..72b192e57 100644
--- a/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/test/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizerTests.java
+++ b/spring-batch-infrastructure/src/test/java/org/springframework/batch/item/file/transform/DelimitedLineTokenizerTests.java
@@ -52,6 +52,12 @@ public class DelimitedLineTokenizerTests {
         assertTrue(TOKEN_MATCHES, tokens.readString(0).equals(""));
     }
 
+    @Test
+    public void testEmptyString() {
+        FieldSet tokens = tokenizer.tokenize("\"\"");
+        assertTrue(TOKEN_MATCHES, tokens.readString(0).equals(""));
+    }
+
 	@Test
 	public void testInvalidConstructorArgument() {
 		try {