Convert InputStream to byte array in Java

Question

How do I read an entire InputStream into a byte array?

Answer 1

You're doing an extra copy if you use ByteArrayOutputStream. If you know the length of the stream before you start reading it (e.g. the InputStream is actually a FileInputStream, and you can call file.length() on the file, or the InputStream is a zipfile entry InputStream, and you can call zipEntry.length()), then it's far better to write directly into the byte[] array -- it uses half the memory, and saves time.

// Read the file contents into a byte[] array
byte[] buf = new byte[inputStreamLength];
int bytesRead = Math.max(0, inputStream.read(buf));

// If needed: for safety, truncate the array if the file may somehow get
// truncated during the read operation
byte[] contents = bytesRead == inputStreamLength ? buf
                  : Arrays.copyOf(buf, bytesRead);

N.B. the last line above deals with files getting truncated while the stream is being read, if you need to handle that possibility, but if the file gets longer while the stream is being read, the contents in the byte[] array will not be lengthened to include the new file content, the array will simply be truncated to the old length inputStreamLength.