Best way to read structured binary files with Java

Question

I have to read a binary file in a legacy format with Java.

In a nutshell the file has a header consisting of several integers, bytes and fixed-length char arrays, f

Answer 1

You could use the DataInputStream class as follows:

DataInputStream in = new DataInputStream(new BufferedInputStream(
                         new FileInputStream("filename")));
int x = in.readInt();
double y = in.readDouble();

etc.

Once you get these values you can do with them as you please. Look up the java.io.DataInputStream class in the API for more info.