Java ByteBuffer to String

Question

Is this a correct approach to convert ByteBuffer to String in this way,

String k = \"abcd\";
ByteBuffer b = ByteBuffer.wrap(k.getBytes());
String v = new Str         


        

Answer 1

The answers referring to simply calling array() are not quite correct: when the buffer has been partially consumed, or is referring to a part of an array (you can ByteBuffer.wrap an array at a given offset, not necessarily from the beginning), we have to account for that in our calculations. This is the general solution that works for buffers in all cases (does not cover encoding):

if (myByteBuffer.hasArray()) {
    return new String(myByteBuffer.array(),
        myByteBuffer.arrayOffset() + myByteBuffer.position(),
        myByteBuffer.remaining());
} else {
    final byte[] b = new byte[myByteBuffer.remaining()];
    myByteBuffer.duplicate().get(b);
    return new String(b);
}

For the concerns related to encoding, see Andy Thomas' answer.