Convert InputStream to byte array in Java

Question

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

Answer 1

Java 8 way (thanks to BufferedReader and Adam Bien)

private static byte[] readFully(InputStream input) throws IOException {
    try (BufferedReader buffer = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(input))) {
        return buffer.lines().collect(Collectors.joining("\n")).getBytes(<charset_can_be_specified>);
    }
}

Note that this solution wipes carriage return ('\r') and can be inappropriate.

Answer 2

Java 9 will give you finally a nice method:

InputStream in = ...;
ByteArrayOutputStream bos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
in.transferTo( bos );
byte[] bytes = bos.toByteArray();

Answer 3

You can use Apache Commons IO to handle this and similar tasks.

The IOUtils type has a static method to read an InputStream and return a byte[].

InputStream is;
byte[] bytes = IOUtils.toByteArray(is);

Internally this creates a ByteArrayOutputStream and copies the bytes to the output, then calls toByteArray(). It handles large files by copying the bytes in blocks of 4KiB.

Answer 4

Safe solution (with capability of close streams correctly):

• Java 9+:

   final byte[] bytes;
   try (inputStream) {
       bytes = inputStream.readAllBytes();
   }
  

---

• Java 8:

   public static byte[] readAllBytes(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {
       final int bufLen = 4 * 0x400; // 4KB
       byte[] buf = new byte[bufLen];
       int readLen;
       IOException exception = null;
  
       try {
           try (ByteArrayOutputStream outputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream()) {
               while ((readLen = inputStream.read(buf, 0, bufLen)) != -1)
                   outputStream.write(buf, 0, readLen);
  
               return outputStream.toByteArray();
           }
       } catch (IOException e) {
           exception = e;
           throw e;
       } finally {
           if (exception == null) inputStream.close();
           else try {
               inputStream.close();
           } catch (IOException e) {
               exception.addSuppressed(e);
           }
       }
   }
  

---

• Kotlin (when Java 9+ isn't accessible):

   @Throws(IOException::class)
   fun InputStream.readAllBytes(): ByteArray {
       val bufLen = 4 * 0x400 // 4KB
       val buf = ByteArray(bufLen)
       var readLen: Int = 0
  
       ByteArrayOutputStream().use { o ->
           this.use { i ->
               while (i.read(buf, 0, bufLen).also { readLen = it } != -1)
                   o.write(buf, 0, readLen)
           }
  
           return o.toByteArray()
       }
   }
  

  To avoid nested use see here.

---

• Scala (when Java 9+ isn't accessible) (By @Joan. Thx):

  def readAllBytes(inputStream: InputStream): Array[Byte] =
    Stream.continually(inputStream.read).takeWhile(_ != -1).map(_.toByte).toArray
  

Answer 5

The other case to get correct byte array via stream, after send request to server and waiting for the response.

/**
         * Begin setup TCP connection to PC app
         * to open integrate connection between mobile app and pc app (or mobile app)
         */
        mSocket = new Socket(IP, port);
       // mSocket.setSoTimeout(30000);

        DataOutputStream mDos = new DataOutputStream(mSocket.getOutputStream());

        String str = "MobileRequest#" + params[0] + "#<EOF>";

        mDos.write(str.getBytes());

        try {
            Thread.sleep(1000);
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        /* Since data are accepted as byte, all of them will be collected in the
        following byte array which initialised with accepted data length. */
        DataInputStream mDis = new DataInputStream(mSocket.getInputStream());
        byte[] data = new byte[mDis.available()];

        // Collecting data into byte array
        for (int i = 0; i < data.length; i++)
            data[i] = mDis.readByte();

        // Converting collected data in byte array into String.
        String RESPONSE = new String(data);

Answer 6

This is my copy-paste version:

@SuppressWarnings("empty-statement")
public static byte[] inputStreamToByte(InputStream is) throws IOException {
    if (is == null) {
        return null;
    }
    // Define a size if you have an idea of it.
    ByteArrayOutputStream r = new ByteArrayOutputStream(2048);
    byte[] read = new byte[512]; // Your buffer size.
    for (int i; -1 != (i = is.read(read)); r.write(read, 0, i));
    is.close();
    return r.toByteArray();
}