How do I read / convert an InputStream into a String in Java?
Asked Answered
A

66

4724

If you have a java.io.InputStream object, how should you process that object and produce a String?


Suppose I have an InputStream that contains text data, and I want to convert it to a String, so for example I can write that to a log file.

What is the easiest way to take the InputStream and convert it to a String?

public String convertStreamToString(InputStream is) {
// ???
}
Atkins answered 21/11, 2008 at 16:47 Comment(3)
Does this answer your question? Scanner is skipping nextLine() after using next() or nextFoo()?Bligh
Remember that you need to take the encoding of the input stream in consideration. The system default is not necessarily always the one you wan.tFlowerpot
Most of these answers were written pre-Java 9, but now you can get a byte array from the InputStream using .readAllBytes. So, simply "new String(inputStream.readAllBytes())" works using String's byte[] constructor.Easy
S
2756

A nice way to do this is using Apache Commons IOUtils to copy the InputStream into a StringWriter... Something like

StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
IOUtils.copy(inputStream, writer, encoding);
String theString = writer.toString();

or even

// NB: does not close inputStream, you'll have to use try-with-resources for that
String theString = IOUtils.toString(inputStream, encoding);

Alternatively, you could use ByteArrayOutputStream if you don't want to mix your Streams and Writers.

Sophisticated answered 21/11, 2008 at 16:54 Comment(2)
Did the toString get deprecated? I see IOUtils.convertStreamToString()Gloze
I added an edit to include a searchable link to the actual source code itself as a reference. I believe this augments the answer for those who want to see how the command works.Maintopmast
E
3522

To summarize the other answers, I found 11 main ways to do this (see below). And I wrote some performance tests (see results below):

Ways to convert an InputStream to a String:

  1. Using IOUtils.toString (Apache Utils)

     String result = IOUtils.toString(inputStream, StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
    
  2. Using CharStreams (Guava)

     String result = CharStreams.toString(new InputStreamReader(
           inputStream, Charsets.UTF_8));
    
  3. Using Scanner (JDK)

     Scanner s = new Scanner(inputStream).useDelimiter("\\A");
     String result = s.hasNext() ? s.next() : "";
    
  4. Using Stream API (Java 8). Warning: This solution converts different line breaks (like \r\n) to \n.

     String result = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream))
       .lines().collect(Collectors.joining("\n"));
    
  5. Using parallel Stream API (Java 8). Warning: This solution converts different line breaks (like \r\n) to \n.

     String result = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream))
        .lines().parallel().collect(Collectors.joining("\n"));
    
  6. Using InputStreamReader and StringBuilder (JDK)

     int bufferSize = 1024;
     char[] buffer = new char[bufferSize];
     StringBuilder out = new StringBuilder();
     Reader in = new InputStreamReader(stream, StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
     for (int numRead; (numRead = in.read(buffer, 0, buffer.length)) > 0; ) {
         out.append(buffer, 0, numRead);
     }
     return out.toString();
    
  7. Using StringWriter and IOUtils.copy (Apache Commons)

     StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
     IOUtils.copy(inputStream, writer, "UTF-8");
     return writer.toString();
    
  8. Using ByteArrayOutputStream and inputStream.read (JDK)

     ByteArrayOutputStream result = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
     byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
     for (int length; (length = inputStream.read(buffer)) != -1; ) {
         result.write(buffer, 0, length);
     }
     // StandardCharsets.UTF_8.name() > JDK 7
     return result.toString("UTF-8");
    
  9. Using BufferedReader (JDK). Warning: This solution converts different line breaks (like \n\r) to line.separator system property (for example, in Windows to "\r\n").

     String newLine = System.getProperty("line.separator");
     BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(
             new InputStreamReader(inputStream));
     StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
     for (String line; (line = reader.readLine()) != null; ) {
         if (result.length() > 0) {
             result.append(newLine);
         }
         result.append(line);
     }
     return result.toString();
    
  10. Using BufferedInputStream and ByteArrayOutputStream (JDK)

    BufferedInputStream bis = new BufferedInputStream(inputStream);
    ByteArrayOutputStream buf = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    for (int result = bis.read(); result != -1; result = bis.read()) {
        buf.write((byte) result);
    }
    // StandardCharsets.UTF_8.name() > JDK 7
    return buf.toString("UTF-8");
    
  11. Using inputStream.read() and StringBuilder (JDK). Warning: This solution has problems with Unicode, for example with Russian text (works correctly only with non-Unicode text)

    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    for (int ch; (ch = inputStream.read()) != -1; ) {
        sb.append((char) ch);
    }
    return sb.toString();
    

Warning:

  1. Solutions 4, 5 and 9 convert different line breaks to one.

  2. Solution 11 can't work correctly with Unicode text

Performance tests

Performance tests for small String (length = 175), url in github (mode = Average Time, system = Linux, score 1,343 is the best):

              Benchmark                         Mode  Cnt   Score   Error  Units
 8. ByteArrayOutputStream and read (JDK)        avgt   10   1,343 ± 0,028  us/op
 6. InputStreamReader and StringBuilder (JDK)   avgt   10   6,980 ± 0,404  us/op
10. BufferedInputStream, ByteArrayOutputStream  avgt   10   7,437 ± 0,735  us/op
11. InputStream.read() and StringBuilder (JDK)  avgt   10   8,977 ± 0,328  us/op
 7. StringWriter and IOUtils.copy (Apache)      avgt   10  10,613 ± 0,599  us/op
 1. IOUtils.toString (Apache Utils)             avgt   10  10,605 ± 0,527  us/op
 3. Scanner (JDK)                               avgt   10  12,083 ± 0,293  us/op
 2. CharStreams (guava)                         avgt   10  12,999 ± 0,514  us/op
 4. Stream Api (Java 8)                         avgt   10  15,811 ± 0,605  us/op
 9. BufferedReader (JDK)                        avgt   10  16,038 ± 0,711  us/op
 5. parallel Stream Api (Java 8)                avgt   10  21,544 ± 0,583  us/op

Performance tests for big String (length = 50100), url in github (mode = Average Time, system = Linux, score 200,715 is the best):

               Benchmark                        Mode  Cnt   Score        Error  Units
 8. ByteArrayOutputStream and read (JDK)        avgt   10   200,715 ±   18,103  us/op
 1. IOUtils.toString (Apache Utils)             avgt   10   300,019 ±    8,751  us/op
 6. InputStreamReader and StringBuilder (JDK)   avgt   10   347,616 ±  130,348  us/op
 7. StringWriter and IOUtils.copy (Apache)      avgt   10   352,791 ±  105,337  us/op
 2. CharStreams (guava)                         avgt   10   420,137 ±   59,877  us/op
 9. BufferedReader (JDK)                        avgt   10   632,028 ±   17,002  us/op
 5. parallel Stream Api (Java 8)                avgt   10   662,999 ±   46,199  us/op
 4. Stream Api (Java 8)                         avgt   10   701,269 ±   82,296  us/op
10. BufferedInputStream, ByteArrayOutputStream  avgt   10   740,837 ±    5,613  us/op
 3. Scanner (JDK)                               avgt   10   751,417 ±   62,026  us/op
11. InputStream.read() and StringBuilder (JDK)  avgt   10  2919,350 ± 1101,942  us/op

Graphs (performance tests depending on Input Stream length in Windows 7 system)
enter image description here

Performance test (Average Time) depending on Input Stream length in Windows 7 system:

 length  182    546     1092    3276    9828    29484   58968

 test8  0.38    0.938   1.868   4.448   13.412  36.459  72.708
 test4  2.362   3.609   5.573   12.769  40.74   81.415  159.864
 test5  3.881   5.075   6.904   14.123  50.258  129.937 166.162
 test9  2.237   3.493   5.422   11.977  45.98   89.336  177.39
 test6  1.261   2.12    4.38    10.698  31.821  86.106  186.636
 test7  1.601   2.391   3.646   8.367   38.196  110.221 211.016
 test1  1.529   2.381   3.527   8.411   40.551  105.16  212.573
 test3  3.035   3.934   8.606   20.858  61.571  118.744 235.428
 test2  3.136   6.238   10.508  33.48   43.532  118.044 239.481
 test10 1.593   4.736   7.527   20.557  59.856  162.907 323.147
 test11 3.913   11.506  23.26   68.644  207.591 600.444 1211.545
Enormous answered 17/2, 2016 at 0:58 Comment(8)
Nice work. Could be useful to provide a tl;dr summary at the bottom, i.e. throwing out the solutions that have problems with line breaks / unicode and then (out of those that remain) saying which is fastest with or without external libraries.Selfaddressed
I was curious about the Java 9 InputStream.transferTo and Java 10 Reader.transferTo solutions that were added since this answer was posted, so I checked out the linked code and added benchmarks for them. I only tested the "big string" benchmarks. InputStream.transferTo was the fastest of all the solutions tested, running in 60% of the time as test8 did on my machine. Reader.transferTo was slower than test8, but faster than all the other tests. That said, it ran in 95% of the time as test1, so it's not a significant improvement.Pubes
I converted all the while loops to for loops in an edit to this post, to avoid polluting the namespace with a variable that isn't used outside the loop. It's a neat trick that works in most Java reader/writer loops.Confirmation
With Java 9 you can get a byte array from the InputStream using .readAllBytes. So "new String(inputStream.readAllBytes())" works using String's byte[] constructor.Easy
Is 11 buffered? If not, the chunks may be small and what is seen is simply the additional overhead from the extra calls.Flowerpot
One of the best answers to a question on complete stack overflow!Nagano
This answer is amazing. How did you build the stats, the avgt, higher time is worse?Overthecounter
On number 5 does using parallel actually have a performance benefit over just using a sequential stream? I would guess that since the data has to be read in order anyway there wouldn't be any benefitWilding
S
2756

A nice way to do this is using Apache Commons IOUtils to copy the InputStream into a StringWriter... Something like

StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
IOUtils.copy(inputStream, writer, encoding);
String theString = writer.toString();

or even

// NB: does not close inputStream, you'll have to use try-with-resources for that
String theString = IOUtils.toString(inputStream, encoding);

Alternatively, you could use ByteArrayOutputStream if you don't want to mix your Streams and Writers.

Sophisticated answered 21/11, 2008 at 16:54 Comment(2)
Did the toString get deprecated? I see IOUtils.convertStreamToString()Gloze
I added an edit to include a searchable link to the actual source code itself as a reference. I believe this augments the answer for those who want to see how the command works.Maintopmast
W
2364

Here's a way using only the standard Java library (note that the stream is not closed, your mileage may vary).

static String convertStreamToString(java.io.InputStream is) {
    java.util.Scanner s = new java.util.Scanner(is).useDelimiter("\\A");
    return s.hasNext() ? s.next() : "";
}

I learned this trick from "Stupid Scanner tricks" article. The reason it works is because Scanner iterates over tokens in the stream, and in this case we separate tokens using "beginning of the input boundary" (\A), thus giving us only one token for the entire contents of the stream.

Note, if you need to be specific about the input stream's encoding, you can provide the second argument to Scanner constructor that indicates what character set to use (e.g. "UTF-8").

Hat tip goes also to Jacob, who once pointed me to the said article.

Warlord answered 26/3, 2011 at 20:40 Comment(2)
Shouldn't we close the scanner before returning the value?Coleen
would do the same and close the resource with try with resource try( java.util.Scanner s = new java.util.Scanner(is).useDelimiter("\\A")){ return s.hasNext() ? s.next() : ""; }Chiou
W
890

Apache Commons allows:

String myString = IOUtils.toString(myInputStream, "UTF-8");

Of course, you could choose other character encodings besides UTF-8.

Also see: (documentation)

Wilton answered 8/12, 2008 at 20:13 Comment(1)
Trying to get back InputStream, not working https://mcmap.net/q/36185/-java-get-back-inputstream-from-string-converted-by-apache-ioutils/3425489Westlund
T
321

Taking into account file one should first get a java.io.Reader instance. This can then be read and added to a StringBuilder (we don't need StringBuffer if we are not accessing it in multiple threads, and StringBuilder is faster). The trick here is that we work in blocks, and as such don't need other buffering streams. The block size is parameterized for run-time performance optimization.

public static String slurp(final InputStream is, final int bufferSize) {
    final char[] buffer = new char[bufferSize];
    final StringBuilder out = new StringBuilder();
    try (Reader in = new InputStreamReader(is, "UTF-8")) {
        for (;;) {
            int rsz = in.read(buffer, 0, buffer.length);
            if (rsz < 0)
                break;
            out.append(buffer, 0, rsz);
        }
    }
    catch (UnsupportedEncodingException ex) {
        /* ... */
    }
    catch (IOException ex) {
        /* ... */
    }
    return out.toString();
}
Thadeus answered 21/11, 2008 at 16:47 Comment(0)
R
272

Use:

InputStream in = /* Your InputStream */;
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));
String read;

while ((read=br.readLine()) != null) {
    //System.out.println(read);
    sb.append(read);
}

br.close();
return sb.toString();
Rawdan answered 4/8, 2011 at 8:29 Comment(1)
readLine() removes the line feed character so the resulting string will contain no line breaks unless you add a line separator between each line you add to the builder.Razid
M
187

For completeness here is Java 9 solution:

public static String toString(InputStream input) throws IOException {
    return new String(input.readAllBytes(), StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
}

This uses the readAllBytes method which was added to Java 9.

Milks answered 2/9, 2015 at 11:50 Comment(5)
I benchmarked this here, and found this to be the fastest solution on my machine, running in about 60% the time of the next-fastest solution benchmarked.Pubes
>This method blocks until all remaining bytes have been read and end of stream is detected, or an exception is thrown.Wampum
@MartinMeeser all solutions on this page do, as it is part of the task.Lucilla
@Lucilla read=br.readLine() WILL NOT block until all bytes are read or end of line is detected, InputStream.read will read one byte or given buffer size, difference to readAllBytes is quite impactfullWampum
@MartinMeeser the task is to read the entire InputStream into one string. Of course, you can split it into multiple steps which are not reading the entire stream, but that is pointless when all you are doing with those steps, is to reassemble the partial results into a single result after the entire stream has been read. So, none of the solutions to this specific task will return before the entire stream has been read.Lucilla
M
186

If you are using Google-Collections/Guava you could do the following:

InputStream stream = ...
String content = CharStreams.toString(new InputStreamReader(stream, Charsets.UTF_8));
Closeables.closeQuietly(stream);

Note that the second parameter (i.e. Charsets.UTF_8) for the InputStreamReader isn't necessary, but it is generally a good idea to specify the encoding if you know it (which you should!)

Mayes answered 13/7, 2010 at 15:56 Comment(0)
I
137

This is the best pure Java solution that fits perfectly for Android and any other JVM.

This solution works amazingly well... it is simple, fast, and works on small and large streams just the same!! (see benchmark above.. No. 8)

public String readFullyAsString(InputStream inputStream, String encoding)
        throws IOException {
    return readFully(inputStream).toString(encoding);
}

public byte[] readFullyAsBytes(InputStream inputStream)
        throws IOException {
    return readFully(inputStream).toByteArray();
}

private ByteArrayOutputStream readFully(InputStream inputStream)
        throws IOException {
    ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
    int length = 0;
    while ((length = inputStream.read(buffer)) != -1) {
        baos.write(buffer, 0, length);
    }
    return baos;
}
Irrelievable answered 8/5, 2012 at 20:24 Comment(0)
D
80

Use:

import java.io.BufferedInputStream;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.IOException;

public static String readInputStreamAsString(InputStream in)
    throws IOException {

    BufferedInputStream bis = new BufferedInputStream(in);
    ByteArrayOutputStream buf = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    int result = bis.read();
    while(result != -1) {
        byte b = (byte)result;
        buf.write(b);
        result = bis.read();
    }
    return buf.toString();
}
Deferent answered 10/6, 2009 at 21:7 Comment(0)
P
68

Here's the most elegant, pure-Java (no library) solution I came up with after some experimentation:

public static String fromStream(InputStream in) throws IOException
{
    BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));
    StringBuilder out = new StringBuilder();
    String newLine = System.getProperty("line.separator");
    String line;
    while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
        out.append(line);
        out.append(newLine);
    }
    return out.toString();
}
Pileup answered 1/1, 2013 at 3:43 Comment(0)
M
67

I did a benchmark upon 14 distinct answers here (sorry for not providing credits but there are too many duplicates).

The result is very surprising. It turns out that Apache IOUtils is the slowest and ByteArrayOutputStream is the fastest solutions:

So first here is the best method:

public String inputStreamToString(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {
    try(ByteArrayOutputStream result = new ByteArrayOutputStream()) {
        byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
        int length;
        while ((length = inputStream.read(buffer)) != -1) {
            result.write(buffer, 0, length);
        }

        return result.toString(UTF_8);
    }
}

Benchmark results, of 20 MB random bytes in 20 cycles

Time in milliseconds

  • ByteArrayOutputStreamTest: 194
  • NioStream: 198
  • Java9ISTransferTo: 201
  • Java9ISReadAllBytes: 205
  • BufferedInputStreamVsByteArrayOutputStream: 314
  • ApacheStringWriter2: 574
  • GuavaCharStreams: 589
  • ScannerReaderNoNextTest: 614
  • ScannerReader: 633
  • ApacheStringWriter: 1544
  • StreamApi: Error
  • ParallelStreamApi: Error
  • BufferReaderTest: Error
  • InputStreamAndStringBuilder: Error

Benchmark source code

import com.google.common.io.CharStreams;
import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;

import java.io.*;
import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
import java.nio.channels.Channels;
import java.nio.channels.ReadableByteChannel;
import java.nio.channels.WritableByteChannel;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Random;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;

/**
 * Created by Ilya Gazman on 2/13/18.
 */
public class InputStreamToString {


    private static final String UTF_8 = "UTF-8";

    public static void main(String... args) {
        log("App started");
        byte[] bytes = new byte[1024 * 1024];
        new Random().nextBytes(bytes);
        log("Stream is ready\n");

        try {
            test(bytes);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    private static void test(byte[] bytes) throws IOException {
        List<Stringify> tests = Arrays.asList(
                new ApacheStringWriter(),
                new ApacheStringWriter2(),
                new NioStream(),
                new ScannerReader(),
                new ScannerReaderNoNextTest(),
                new GuavaCharStreams(),
                new StreamApi(),
                new ParallelStreamApi(),
                new ByteArrayOutputStreamTest(),
                new BufferReaderTest(),
                new BufferedInputStreamVsByteArrayOutputStream(),
                new InputStreamAndStringBuilder(),
                new Java9ISTransferTo(),
                new Java9ISReadAllBytes()
        );

        String solution = new String(bytes, "UTF-8");

        for (Stringify test : tests) {
            try (ByteArrayInputStream inputStream = new ByteArrayInputStream(bytes)) {
                String s = test.inputStreamToString(inputStream);
                if (!s.equals(solution)) {
                    log(test.name() + ": Error");
                    continue;
                }
            }
            long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
            for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++) {
                try (ByteArrayInputStream inputStream = new ByteArrayInputStream(bytes)) {
                    test.inputStreamToString(inputStream);
                }
            }
            log(test.name() + ": " + (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime));
        }
    }

    private static void log(String message) {
        System.out.println(message);
    }

    interface Stringify {
        String inputStreamToString(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException;

        default String name() {
            return this.getClass().getSimpleName();
        }
    }

    static class ApacheStringWriter implements Stringify {

        @Override
        public String inputStreamToString(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {
            StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
            IOUtils.copy(inputStream, writer, UTF_8);
            return writer.toString();
        }
    }

    static class ApacheStringWriter2 implements Stringify {

        @Override
        public String inputStreamToString(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {
            return IOUtils.toString(inputStream, UTF_8);
        }
    }

    static class NioStream implements Stringify {

        @Override
        public String inputStreamToString(InputStream in) throws IOException {
            ReadableByteChannel channel = Channels.newChannel(in);
            ByteBuffer byteBuffer = ByteBuffer.allocate(1024 * 16);
            ByteArrayOutputStream bout = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
            WritableByteChannel outChannel = Channels.newChannel(bout);
            while (channel.read(byteBuffer) > 0 || byteBuffer.position() > 0) {
                byteBuffer.flip();  //make buffer ready for write
                outChannel.write(byteBuffer);
                byteBuffer.compact(); //make buffer ready for reading
            }
            channel.close();
            outChannel.close();
            return bout.toString(UTF_8);
        }
    }

    static class ScannerReader implements Stringify {

        @Override
        public String inputStreamToString(InputStream is) throws IOException {
            java.util.Scanner s = new java.util.Scanner(is).useDelimiter("\\A");
            return s.hasNext() ? s.next() : "";
        }
    }

    static class ScannerReaderNoNextTest implements Stringify {

        @Override
        public String inputStreamToString(InputStream is) throws IOException {
            java.util.Scanner s = new java.util.Scanner(is).useDelimiter("\\A");
            return s.next();
        }
    }

    static class GuavaCharStreams implements Stringify {

        @Override
        public String inputStreamToString(InputStream is) throws IOException {
            return CharStreams.toString(new InputStreamReader(
                    is, UTF_8));
        }
    }

    static class StreamApi implements Stringify {

        @Override
        public String inputStreamToString(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {
            return new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream))
                    .lines().collect(Collectors.joining("\n"));
        }
    }

    static class ParallelStreamApi implements Stringify {

        @Override
        public String inputStreamToString(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {
            return new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream)).lines()
                    .parallel().collect(Collectors.joining("\n"));
        }
    }

    static class ByteArrayOutputStreamTest implements Stringify {

        @Override
        public String inputStreamToString(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {
            try(ByteArrayOutputStream result = new ByteArrayOutputStream()) {
                byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
                int length;
                while ((length = inputStream.read(buffer)) != -1) {
                    result.write(buffer, 0, length);
                }

                return result.toString(UTF_8);
            }
        }
    }

    static class BufferReaderTest implements Stringify {

        @Override
        public String inputStreamToString(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {
            String newLine = System.getProperty("line.separator");
            BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream));
            StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder(UTF_8);
            String line;
            boolean flag = false;
            while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
                result.append(flag ? newLine : "").append(line);
                flag = true;
            }
            return result.toString();
        }
    }

    static class BufferedInputStreamVsByteArrayOutputStream implements Stringify {

        @Override
        public String inputStreamToString(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {
            BufferedInputStream bis = new BufferedInputStream(inputStream);
            ByteArrayOutputStream buf = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
            int result = bis.read();
            while (result != -1) {
                buf.write((byte) result);
                result = bis.read();
            }

            return buf.toString(UTF_8);
        }
    }

    static class InputStreamAndStringBuilder implements Stringify {

        @Override
        public String inputStreamToString(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {
            int ch;
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(UTF_8);
            while ((ch = inputStream.read()) != -1)
                sb.append((char) ch);
            return sb.toString();
        }
    }

    static class Java9ISTransferTo implements Stringify {

        @Override
        public String inputStreamToString(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {
            ByteArrayOutputStream bos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
            inputStream.transferTo(bos);
            return bos.toString(UTF_8);
        }
    }

    static class Java9ISReadAllBytes implements Stringify {

        @Override
        public String inputStreamToString(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {
            return new String(inputStream.readAllBytes(), UTF_8);
        }
    }

}
Mcauliffe answered 13/2, 2018 at 21:30 Comment(13)
Making benchmarks in Java is not easy (especially because of JIT). After reading Benchmark source code, I'm convinced that those values above are not precise and everyone should be careful by believing them.Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne you probably should provide more reasoning for your claim rather than just a link.Mcauliffe
I think that it is really known fact that it is not easy to make your own benchmark. For those who do not know that, there is link ;)Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne I am perhaps not the best, but I have a good understanding of Java benchmarks, so unless you can point out a specific problem, you are just misleading, and I will not continue the conversation with you under those conditions.Mcauliffe
Mostly I agree with Dalibor. You say you have a "good understanding of Java benchmarks", but you seem to have implemented the most naive approach while being apparently ignorant of the well known issues of this approach. For starters, read every post on this question: #504603Akan
@DavidS my test complies with the rules in the excepted answer that you linked. Are you able to point out for any problem in my implementation?Mcauliffe
From the accepted answer: Rule 0: Read the paper, which essentially warns against attempting a micro-benchmark. Rule 1: You have no warm up phase. Rule 2-3: You've given no indication you used these flags. Rule 8: Use a library like JMH. With 135 votes in the comments: Don't use System.currentTimeMillis(). Moving on to other highly voted answers. Jon Skeet: use System.gc() between iterations, and run your test long enough to measure the results in seconds, not milliseconds. Mixing tests in a single JVM run is bad, as the compiler optimizations done for one test will impact another.Akan
I have some free time, so here are a few more. Rule 5: You include the first iteration in your timing phase. Rule 6: You have used no special tools to "read the compilers mind". Rule 7: You have given no indication that you used these flags. There, I think that about covers it. I think that's every rule except for rule 4.Akan
@DavidS Rule 0,8: As I already mentioned, I know what I am doing, so this one does not applies here, there is more than one way to do things. Rule 1: of course I do, read my code more carefully, the test is called before the timer starts to worm up! As for System.gc(), it's just hint for for the system, you cannot trust it to do anything.Mcauliffe
@DavidS if you disagree with my implementation, run your own banchmark using what ever library you want and bring your results here. I be happy to compareMcauliffe
You asked me to point out the problems. I have done so. I'm almost done trying to convince you, but here we go one more time. Rule 1: A single iteration is not a "warm up": the JIT compiler optimizes after thousands of iterations, not one. System.gc is a just a hint, but it's a very reliable one, and it would improve your tests. Finally, you are ignoring all of the other points: compiler flags, currentTimeMillis, splitting tests across multiple JVM runs. These are the serious problems with your attempt at benchmarking. I did not make them up myself: they are well known practices and tools.Akan
@DavidS I think you are miss reading this. Check out the input size. It's 1M byte array. Iterating on it once means the underline stream implementation is going todo a lot of loops.Mcauliffe
How many loops for warm-up? Will the loop count vary by algorithm used? Will it be enough to ensure the JIT compiler has achieved optimization? How would you know when it is enough? Wouldn't it be better to explicitly declare a warm-up phase with a known-number of iterations instead of relying on the underlying stream implementation? Wouldn't it be better to use a tool like JMH instead of trying to account for all of this?Akan
D
44

I'd use some Java 8 tricks.

public static String streamToString(final InputStream inputStream) throws Exception {
    // buffering optional
    try
    (
        final BufferedReader br
           = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream))
    ) {
        // parallel optional
        return br.lines().parallel().collect(Collectors.joining("\n"));
    } catch (final IOException e) {
        throw new RuntimeException(e);
        // whatever.
    }
}

Essentially the same as some other answers except more succinct.

Detonate answered 17/7, 2014 at 17:58 Comment(1)
What are the tricks? Can you add a description? (But *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** without *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** "Edit:", "Update:", or similar - the answer should appear as if it was written today.)Langelo
C
40

I ran some timing tests because time matters, always.

I attempted to get the response into a String 3 different ways. (shown below)
I left out try/catch blocks for the sake readability.

To give context, this is the preceding code for all 3 approaches:

   String response;
   String url = "www.blah.com/path?key=value";
   GetMethod method = new GetMethod(url);
   int status = client.executeMethod(method);

1)

 response = method.getResponseBodyAsString();

2)

InputStream resp = method.getResponseBodyAsStream();
InputStreamReader is=new InputStreamReader(resp);
BufferedReader br=new BufferedReader(is);
String read = null;
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
while((read = br.readLine()) != null) {
    sb.append(read);
}
response = sb.toString();

3)

InputStream iStream  = method.getResponseBodyAsStream();
StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
IOUtils.copy(iStream, writer, "UTF-8");
response = writer.toString();

So, after running 500 tests on each approach with the same request/response data, here are the numbers. Once again, these are my findings and your findings may not be exactly the same, but I wrote this to give some indication to others of the efficiency differences of these approaches.

Ranks:
Approach #1
Approach #3 - 2.6% slower than #1
Approach #2 - 4.3% slower than #1

Any of these approaches is an appropriate solution for grabbing a response and creating a String from it.

Chante answered 12/10, 2011 at 17:23 Comment(0)
D
39

Pure Java solution using Streams, works since Java 8.

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;

// ...
public static String inputStreamToString(InputStream is) throws IOException {
    try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is))) {
        return br.lines().collect(Collectors.joining(System.lineSeparator()));
    }
}

As mentioned by Christoffer Hammarström below other answer it is safer to explicitly specify the Charset. I.e. The InputStreamReader constructor can be changes as follows:

new InputStreamReader(is, Charset.forName("UTF-8"))
Doordie answered 26/2, 2015 at 18:39 Comment(0)
H
31

Here's more-or-less sampath's answer, cleaned up a bit and represented as a function:

String streamToString(InputStream in) throws IOException {
  StringBuilder out = new StringBuilder();
  BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));
  for (String line = br.readLine(); line != null; line = br.readLine())
    out.append(line);
  br.close();
  return out.toString();
}
Hedvig answered 30/3, 2012 at 19:52 Comment(1)
br.close() has to be done within a finally or ` try-with-resources` block.Edme
U
30

If you can't use Commons IO (FileUtils, IOUtils, and CopyUtils), here's an example using a BufferedReader to read the file line by line:

public class StringFromFile {
    public static void main(String[] args) /*throws UnsupportedEncodingException*/ {
        InputStream is = StringFromFile.class.getResourceAsStream("file.txt");
        BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is/*, "UTF-8"*/));
        final int CHARS_PER_PAGE = 5000; //counting spaces
        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(CHARS_PER_PAGE);
        try {
            for(String line=br.readLine(); line!=null; line=br.readLine()) {
                builder.append(line);
                builder.append('\n');
            }
        }
        catch (IOException ignore) { }

        String text = builder.toString();
        System.out.println(text);
    }
}

Or if you want raw speed, I'd propose a variation on what Paul de Vrieze suggested (which avoids using a StringWriter (which uses a StringBuffer internally):

public class StringFromFileFast {
    public static void main(String[] args) /*throws UnsupportedEncodingException*/ {
        InputStream is = StringFromFileFast.class.getResourceAsStream("file.txt");
        InputStreamReader input = new InputStreamReader(is/*, "UTF-8"*/);
        final int CHARS_PER_PAGE = 5000; //counting spaces
        final char[] buffer = new char[CHARS_PER_PAGE];
        StringBuilder output = new StringBuilder(CHARS_PER_PAGE);
        try {
            for(int read = input.read(buffer, 0, buffer.length);
                    read != -1;
                    read = input.read(buffer, 0, buffer.length)) {
                output.append(buffer, 0, read);
            }
        } catch (IOException ignore) { }

        String text = output.toString();
        System.out.println(text);
    }
}
Underpants answered 18/5, 2010 at 12:57 Comment(0)
L
30

If you were feeling adventurous, you could mix Scala and Java and end up with this:

scala.io.Source.fromInputStream(is).mkString("")

Mixing Java and Scala code and libraries has it's benefits.

See full description here: Idiomatic way to convert an InputStream to a String in Scala

Landes answered 7/3, 2012 at 7:32 Comment(0)
C
25

Use the java.io.InputStream.transferTo(OutputStream) supported in Java 9 and the ByteArrayOutputStream.toString(String) which takes the charset name:

public static String gobble(InputStream in, String charsetName) throws IOException {
    ByteArrayOutputStream bos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    in.transferTo(bos);
    return bos.toString(charsetName);
}
Capsular answered 28/1, 2016 at 15:55 Comment(0)
H
24

This one is nice because:

  • It safely handles the Charset.
  • You control the read buffer size.
  • You can provision the length of the builder and it doesn't have to be an exact value.
  • Is free from library dependencies.
  • Is for Java 7 or higher.

How to do it

public static String convertStreamToString(InputStream is) throws IOException {
   StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(2048); // Define a size if you have an idea of it.
   char[] read = new char[128]; // Your buffer size.
   try (InputStreamReader ir = new InputStreamReader(is, StandardCharsets.UTF_8)) {
     for (int i; -1 != (i = ir.read(read)); sb.append(read, 0, i));
   }
   return sb.toString();
}

For JDK 9

public static String inputStreamString(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {
    try (inputStream) {
        return new String(inputStream.readAllBytes(), StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
    }
}
Hengelo answered 8/6, 2014 at 7:46 Comment(0)
O
24

This is an answer adapted from org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils source code, for those who want to have the Apache implementation, but do not want the whole library.

private static final int BUFFER_SIZE = 4 * 1024;

public static String inputStreamToString(InputStream inputStream, String charsetName)
        throws IOException {
    StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
    InputStreamReader reader = new InputStreamReader(inputStream, charsetName);
    char[] buffer = new char[BUFFER_SIZE];
    int length;
    while ((length = reader.read(buffer)) != -1) {
        builder.append(buffer, 0, length);
    }
    return builder.toString();
}
Occult answered 3/8, 2014 at 9:47 Comment(0)
D
22

Make sure to close the streams at the end if you use Stream Readers

private String readStream(InputStream iStream) throws IOException {

    // Build a Stream Reader, it can read character by character
    InputStreamReader iStreamReader = new InputStreamReader(iStream);

    // Build a buffered Reader, so that I can read whole line at once
    BufferedReader bReader = new BufferedReader(iStreamReader);
    String line = null;
    StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
    while((line = bReader.readLine()) != null) {  // Read till end
        builder.append(line);
        builder.append("\n"); // Append new line to preserve lines
    }
    bReader.close();         // Close all opened stuff
    iStreamReader.close();
    //iStream.close(); // Let the creator of the stream close it!
                       // some readers may auto close the inner stream
    return builder.toString();
}

On JDK 7+, you can use try-with-resources construct.

/**
 * Reads the stream into a string
 * @param iStream the input stream
 * @return the string read from the stream
 * @throws IOException when an IO error occurs
 */
private String readStream(InputStream iStream) throws IOException {

    // Buffered reader allows us to read line by line
    try (BufferedReader bReader =
                 new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(iStream))) {
        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
        String line;
        while((line = bReader.readLine()) != null) {  // Read till end
            builder.append(line);
            builder.append("\n"); // Append new line to preserve lines
        }
        return builder.toString();
    }
}
Dioxide answered 17/11, 2012 at 12:39 Comment(0)
D
21
String inputStreamToString(InputStream inputStream, Charset charset) throws IOException {
    try (
            final StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
            final InputStreamReader reader = new InputStreamReader(inputStream, charset)
        ) {
        reader.transferTo(writer);
        return writer.toString();
    }
}
Doordie answered 5/4, 2020 at 0:3 Comment(0)
C
18

Kotlin users simply do:

println(InputStreamReader(is).readText())

whereas

readText()

is the Kotlin standard library’s built-in extension method.

Clorindaclorinde answered 4/2, 2015 at 1:12 Comment(0)
M
17

Here is the complete method for converting InputStream into String without using any third party library. Use StringBuilder for single threaded environment otherwise use StringBuffer.

public static String getString( InputStream is) throws IOException {
    int ch;
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    while((ch = is.read()) != -1)
        sb.append((char)ch);
    return sb.toString();
}
Mainsheet answered 9/4, 2014 at 10:37 Comment(0)
O
17

Another one, for all the Spring users:

import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
import org.springframework.util.FileCopyUtils;

public String convertStreamToString(InputStream is) throws IOException { 
    return new String(FileCopyUtils.copyToByteArray(is), StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
}

The utility methods in org.springframework.util.StreamUtils are similar to the ones in FileCopyUtils, but they leave the stream open when done.

Oakman answered 29/7, 2016 at 20:58 Comment(0)
E
15

Here's how to do it using just the JDK using byte array buffers. This is actually how the commons-io IOUtils.copy() methods all work. You can replace byte[] with char[] if you're copying from a Reader instead of an InputStream.

import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;

...

InputStream is = ....
ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream(8192);
byte[] buffer = new byte[8192];
int count = 0;
try {
  while ((count = is.read(buffer)) != -1) {
    baos.write(buffer, 0, count);
  }
}
finally {
  try {
    is.close();
  }
  catch (Exception ignore) {
  }
}

String charset = "UTF-8";
String inputStreamAsString = baos.toString(charset);
Excurvate answered 2/11, 2012 at 12:37 Comment(0)
A
10

The easiest way in JDK is with the following code snippets.

String convertToString(InputStream in) {
    String resource = new Scanner(in).useDelimiter("\\Z").next();
    return resource;
}
Aiden answered 9/8, 2016 at 20:18 Comment(2)
Why is it "\\Z"?Langelo
An explanation would be in order. E.g., what is the idea/gist? From the Help Center: "...always explain why the solution you're presenting is appropriate and how it works". Please respond by editing (changing) your answer, not here in comments (*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** without *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** "Edit:", "Update:", or similar - the answer should appear as if it was written today).Langelo
L
9

In terms of reduce, and concat it can be expressed in Java 8 as:

String fromFile = new BufferedReader(new   
InputStreamReader(inputStream)).lines().reduce(String::concat).get();
Laidlaw answered 21/1, 2016 at 14:28 Comment(0)
B
8

Here's my Java 8 based solution, which uses the new Stream API to collect all lines from an InputStream:

public static String toString(InputStream inputStream) {
    BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(
        new InputStreamReader(inputStream));
    return reader.lines().collect(Collectors.joining(
        System.getProperty("line.separator")));
}
Beefeater answered 2/9, 2015 at 11:19 Comment(0)
S
6

JDK 7/8 answer that closes the stream and still throws an IOException:

StringBuilder build = new StringBuilder();
byte[] buf = new byte[1024];
int length;
try (InputStream is = getInputStream()) {
  while ((length = is.read(buf)) != -1) {
    build.append(new String(buf, 0, length));
  }
}
Scarify answered 5/12, 2013 at 17:53 Comment(0)
A
5

The below code worked for me.

URL url = MyClass.class.getResource("/" + configFileName);
BufferedInputStream bi = (BufferedInputStream) url.getContent();
byte[] buffer = new byte[bi.available() ];
int bytesRead = bi.read(buffer);
String out = new String(buffer);

Please note, according to Java docs, the available() method might not work with InputStream but always works with BufferedInputStream. In case you don't want to use available() method we can always use the below code

URL url = MyClass.class.getResource("/" + configFileName);
BufferedInputStream bi = (BufferedInputStream) url.getContent();
File f = new File(url.getPath());
byte[] buffer = new byte[ (int) f.length()];
int bytesRead = bi.read(buffer);
String out = new String(buffer);

I am not sure if there will be any encoding issues. Please comment, if there will be any issues with the code.

Ash answered 24/7, 2012 at 10:19 Comment(0)
F
5

Well, you can program it for yourself... It's not complicated...

String Inputstream2String (InputStream is) throws IOException
    {
        final int PKG_SIZE = 1024;
        byte[] data = new byte [PKG_SIZE];
        StringBuilder buffer = new StringBuilder(PKG_SIZE * 10);
        int size;

        size = is.read(data, 0, data.length);
        while (size > 0)
        {
            String str = new String(data, 0, size);
            buffer.append(str);
            size = is.read(data, 0, data.length);
        }
        return buffer.toString();
    }
Forgat answered 9/3, 2013 at 20:13 Comment(6)
Since you're using buffer variable locally with no chance of being shared across multiple threads you should consider changing its type to StringBuilder, to avoid the overhead of (useless) synchronization.Rettke
That's a good point alex!. I thing that we both agree that this method isn't thread-safe in many ways. Even the input stream operations aren't thread-safe.Forgat
If the stream contains UTF-8 character that spans across several lines, this algorithm can cut the character in two breaking the string.Jansenism
@VladLifliand How exactly would a UTF-8 character manage to span across several lines? That's impossible by definition. You probably meant something else.Pact
@ChristianHujer He probably means buffers instead of lines. UTF-8 codepoints/characters can be multi-byte.Snell
Oh yes, they can, and most of them are, multi-byte in UTF-8. Only US-ASCII-7 is not multi-byte in UTF-8. If it's buffers, as in the code, it makes sense. Just not with lines.Pact
P
5

I have written a class that does just that. Sometimes you don't want to add Apache Commons just for one thing, and want something dumber than Scanner that doesn't examine the content.

Usage is as follows

// Read from InputStream
String data = new ReaderSink(inputStream, Charset.forName("UTF-8")).drain();

// Read from File
data = new ReaderSink(file, Charset.forName("UTF-8")).drain();

// Drain input stream to console
new ReaderSink(inputStream, Charset.forName("UTF-8")).drainTo(System.out);

Here is the code for ReaderSink:

import java.io.*;
import java.nio.charset.Charset;

/**
 * A simple sink class that drains a {@link Reader} to a {@link String} or
 * to a {@link Writer}.
 *
 * @author Ben Barkay
 * @version 2/20/2014
 */
public class ReaderSink {
    /**
     * The default buffer size to use if no buffer size was specified.
     */
    public static final int DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE = 1024;

    /**
     * The {@link Reader} that will be drained.
     */
    private final Reader in;

    /**
     * Constructs a new {@code ReaderSink} for the specified file and charset.
     * @param file      The file to read from.
     * @param charset   The charset to use.
     * @throws FileNotFoundException    If the file was not found on the filesystem.
     */
    public ReaderSink(File file, Charset charset) throws FileNotFoundException {
        this(new FileInputStream(file), charset);
    }

    /**
     * Constructs a new {@code ReaderSink} for the specified {@link InputStream}.
     * @param in        The {@link InputStream} to drain.
     * @param charset   The charset to use.
     */
    public ReaderSink(InputStream in, Charset charset) {
        this(new InputStreamReader(in, charset));
    }

    /**
     * Constructs a new {@code ReaderSink} for the specified {@link Reader}.
     * @param in    The reader to drain.
     */
    public ReaderSink(Reader in) {
        this.in = in;
    }

    /**
     * Drains the data from the underlying {@link Reader}, returning a {@link String} containing
     * all of the read information. This method will use {@link #DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE} for
     * its buffer size.
     * @return  A {@link String} containing all of the information that was read.
     */
    public String drain() throws IOException {
        return drain(DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE);
    }

    /**
     * Drains the data from the underlying {@link Reader}, returning a {@link String} containing
     * all of the read information.
     * @param bufferSize    The size of the buffer to use when reading.
     * @return  A {@link String} containing all of the information that was read.
     */
    public String drain(int bufferSize) throws IOException {
        StringWriter stringWriter = new StringWriter();
        drainTo(stringWriter, bufferSize);
        return stringWriter.toString();
    }

    /**
     * Drains the data from the underlying {@link Reader}, writing it to the
     * specified {@link Writer}. This method will use {@link #DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE} for
     * its buffer size.
     * @param out   The {@link Writer} to write to.
     */
    public void drainTo(Writer out) throws IOException {
        drainTo(out, DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE);
    }

    /**
     * Drains the data from the underlying {@link Reader}, writing it to the
     * specified {@link Writer}.
     * @param out           The {@link Writer} to write to.
     * @param bufferSize    The size of the buffer to use when reader.
     */
    public void drainTo(Writer out, int bufferSize) throws IOException {
        char[] buffer = new char[bufferSize];
        int read;
        while ((read = in.read(buffer)) > -1) {
            out.write(buffer, 0, read);
        }
    }
}
Portfire answered 20/2, 2014 at 17:24 Comment(0)
S
5

Based on the second part of the accepted Apache Commons answer but with the small gap filled in for always closing the stream:

    String theString;
    try {
        theString = IOUtils.toString(inputStream, encoding);
    } finally {
        IOUtils.closeQuietly(inputStream);
    }
Selfaddressed answered 24/12, 2015 at 11:8 Comment(1)
Note that this solution is the most inefficient based on my benchmark resultsMcauliffe
C
5

This code is for new Java learners:

private String textDataFromFile;

public String getFromFile(InputStream myInputStream) throws FileNotFoundException, IOException {

    BufferedReader bufferReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(myInputStream));

    StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();

    String eachStringLine;

    while ((eachStringLine = bufferReader.readLine()) != null) {
        stringBuilder.append(eachStringLine).append("\n");
    }
    textDataFromFile = stringBuilder.toString();

    return textDataFromFile;
}
Callable answered 20/11, 2019 at 12:49 Comment(1)
You are converting line separators and in the case where the input doesn't end with a newline, you are adding one. This is useful for some cases, but the it is interpreting the input stream rather than doing a direct conversion to a String.Mamelon
R
4

You can use Apache Commons.

In the IOUtils you can find the toString method with three helpful implementations.

public static String toString(InputStream input) throws IOException {
        return toString(input, Charset.defaultCharset());
}

public static String toString(InputStream input) throws IOException {
        return toString(input, Charset.defaultCharset());
}

public static String toString(InputStream input, String encoding)
            throws IOException {
        return toString(input, Charsets.toCharset(encoding));
}
Roller answered 16/1, 2014 at 14:3 Comment(1)
What is difference between first 2 methods?Seychelles
P
4

Try these 4 statements..

As per the point recalled by Fred, it is not recommended to append a String with += operator since every time a new char is appended to the existing String creating a new String object again and assigning its address to st while the old st object becomes garbage.

public String convertStreamToString(InputStream is)
{
    int k;
    StringBuffer sb=new StringBuffer();
    while((k=fin.read()) != -1)
    {
        sb.append((char)k);
    }
    return sb.toString();
}

Not recommended, but this is also a way

public String convertStreamToString(InputStream is) { 
    int k;
    String st="";
    while((k=is.read()) != -1)
    {
        st+=(char)k;
    }
    return st;
}
Placket answered 7/2, 2014 at 5:17 Comment(1)
String concatenation in a loop with the += operator is not a good idea. It is better to use a StringBuilder or a StringBuffer.Ghats
E
4
InputStream is = Context.openFileInput(someFileName); // whatever format you have

ByteArrayOutputStream bos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();

byte[] b = new byte[8192];
for (int bytesRead; (bytesRead = is.read(b)) != -1;) {
    bos.write(b, 0, bytesRead);
}

String output = bos.toString(someEncoding);
Embus answered 25/8, 2014 at 12:30 Comment(0)
F
4

Guava provides much shorter efficient autoclosing solution in case when input stream comes from classpath resource (which seems to be popular task):

byte[] bytes = Resources.toByteArray(classLoader.getResource(path));

or

String text = Resources.toString(classLoader.getResource(path), StandardCharsets.UTF_8);

There is also general concept of ByteSource and CharSource that gently take care of both opening and closing the stream.

So, for example, instead of explicitly opening a small file to read its contents:

String content = Files.asCharSource(new File("robots.txt"), StandardCharsets.UTF_8).read();
byte[] data = Files.asByteSource(new File("favicon.ico")).read();

or just

String content = Files.toString(new File("robots.txt"), StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
byte[] data = Files.toByteArray(new File("favicon.ico"));
Fuhrman answered 9/7, 2015 at 13:20 Comment(0)
T
4

In Groovy

inputStream.getText()
Throng answered 26/1, 2017 at 19:40 Comment(0)
E
4

Raghu K Nair Was the only one using a scanner. The code I use is a little different:

String convertToString(InputStream in){
    Scanner scanner = new Scanner(in)
    scanner.useDelimiter("\\A");

    boolean hasInput = scanner.hasNext();
    if (hasInput) {
        return scanner.next();
    } else {
        return null;
    }

}

About Delimiters: How do I use a delimiter in Java Scanner?

Eugenioeugenius answered 10/5, 2017 at 11:38 Comment(0)
B
4

With Okio:

String result = Okio.buffer(Okio.source(inputStream)).readUtf8();
Baty answered 7/4, 2018 at 12:53 Comment(1)
Though the tag wiki for Okio has been plagiarised from that page.Langelo
L
3
public String read(InputStream in) throws IOException {
    try (BufferedReader buffer = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in))) {
        return buffer.lines().collect(Collectors.joining("\n"));
    }
}
Ledesma answered 9/1, 2017 at 5:42 Comment(1)
An explanation would be in order. E.g., what is the idea/gist? From the Help Center: "...always explain why the solution you're presenting is appropriate and how it works". Please respond by editing (changing) your answer, not here in comments (*** *** *** *** *** without *** *** *** *** *** "Edit:", "Update:", or similar - the answer should appear as if it was written today).Langelo
A
3

ISO-8859-1

Here is a very performant way to do this if you know your input stream's encoding is ISO-8859-1 or ASCII. It (1) avoids the unnecessary synchronization present in StringWriter's internal StringBuffer, (2) avoids the overhead of InputStreamReader, and (3) minimizes the number of times StringBuilder's internal char array must be copied.

public static String iso_8859_1(InputStream is) throws IOException {
    StringBuilder chars = new StringBuilder(Math.max(is.available(), 4096));
    byte[] buffer = new byte[4096];
    int n;
    while ((n = is.read(buffer)) != -1) {
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            chars.append((char)(buffer[i] & 0xFF));
        }
    }
    return chars.toString();
}

UTF-8

The same general strategy may be used for a stream encoded with UTF-8:

public static String utf8(InputStream is) throws IOException {
    StringBuilder chars = new StringBuilder(Math.max(is.available(), 4096));
    byte[] buffer = new byte[4096];
    int n;
    int state = 0;
    while ((n = is.read(buffer)) != -1) {
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            if ((state = nextStateUtf8(state, buffer[i])) >= 0) {
                chars.appendCodePoint(state);
            } else if (state == -1) { //error
                state = 0;
                chars.append('\uFFFD'); //replacement char
            }
        }
    }
    return chars.toString();
}

where the nextStateUtf8() function is defined as follows:

/**
 * Returns the next UTF-8 state given the next byte of input and the current state.
 * If the input byte is the last byte in a valid UTF-8 byte sequence,
 * the returned state will be the corresponding unicode character (in the range of 0 through 0x10FFFF).
 * Otherwise, a negative integer is returned. A state of -1 is returned whenever an
 * invalid UTF-8 byte sequence is detected.
 */
static int nextStateUtf8(int currentState, byte nextByte) {
    switch (currentState & 0xF0000000) {
        case 0:
            if ((nextByte & 0x80) == 0) { //0 trailing bytes (ASCII)
                return nextByte;
            } else if ((nextByte & 0xE0) == 0xC0) { //1 trailing byte
                if (nextByte == (byte) 0xC0 || nextByte == (byte) 0xC1) { //0xCO & 0xC1 are overlong
                    return -1;
                } else {
                    return nextByte & 0xC000001F;
                }
            } else if ((nextByte & 0xF0) == 0xE0) { //2 trailing bytes
                if (nextByte == (byte) 0xE0) { //possibly overlong
                    return nextByte & 0xA000000F;
                } else if (nextByte == (byte) 0xED) { //possibly surrogate
                    return nextByte & 0xB000000F;
                } else {
                    return nextByte & 0x9000000F;
                }
            } else if ((nextByte & 0xFC) == 0xF0) { //3 trailing bytes
                if (nextByte == (byte) 0xF0) { //possibly overlong
                    return nextByte & 0x80000007;
                } else {
                    return nextByte & 0xE0000007;
                }
            } else if (nextByte == (byte) 0xF4) { //3 trailing bytes, possibly undefined
                return nextByte & 0xD0000007;
            } else {
                return -1;
            }
        case 0xE0000000: //3rd-to-last continuation byte
            return (nextByte & 0xC0) == 0x80 ? currentState << 6 | nextByte & 0x9000003F : -1;
        case 0x80000000: //3rd-to-last continuation byte, check overlong
            return (nextByte & 0xE0) == 0xA0 || (nextByte & 0xF0) == 0x90 ? currentState << 6 | nextByte & 0x9000003F : -1;
        case 0xD0000000: //3rd-to-last continuation byte, check undefined
            return (nextByte & 0xF0) == 0x80 ? currentState << 6 | nextByte & 0x9000003F : -1;
        case 0x90000000: //2nd-to-last continuation byte
            return (nextByte & 0xC0) == 0x80 ? currentState << 6 | nextByte & 0xC000003F : -1;
        case 0xA0000000: //2nd-to-last continuation byte, check overlong
            return (nextByte & 0xE0) == 0xA0 ? currentState << 6 | nextByte & 0xC000003F : -1;
        case 0xB0000000: //2nd-to-last continuation byte, check surrogate
            return (nextByte & 0xE0) == 0x80 ? currentState << 6 | nextByte & 0xC000003F : -1;
        case 0xC0000000: //last continuation byte
            return (nextByte & 0xC0) == 0x80 ? currentState << 6 | nextByte & 0x3F : -1;
        default:
            return -1;
    }
}

Auto-Detect Encoding

If your input stream was encoded using either ASCII or ISO-8859-1 or UTF-8, but you're not sure which, we can use a similar method to the last, but with an additional encoding-detection component to auto-detect the encoding before returning the string.

public static String autoDetect(InputStream is) throws IOException {
    StringBuilder chars = new StringBuilder(Math.max(is.available(), 4096));
    byte[] buffer = new byte[4096];
    int n;
    int state = 0;
    boolean ascii = true;
    while ((n = is.read(buffer)) != -1) {
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            if ((state = nextStateUtf8(state, buffer[i])) > 0x7F)
                ascii = false;
            chars.append((char)(buffer[i] & 0xFF));
        }
    }

    if (ascii || state < 0) { //probably not UTF-8
        return chars.toString();
    }
    //probably UTF-8
    int pos = 0;
    char[] charBuf = new char[2];
    for (int i = 0, len = chars.length(); i < len; i++) {
        if ((state = nextStateUtf8(state, (byte)chars.charAt(i))) >= 0) {
            boolean hi = Character.toChars(state, charBuf, 0) == 2;
            chars.setCharAt(pos++, charBuf[0]);
            if (hi) {
                chars.setCharAt(pos++, charBuf[1]);
            }
        }
    }
    return chars.substring(0, pos);
}

If your input stream has an encoding that is neither ISO-8859-1 nor ASCII nor UTF-8, then I defer to the other answers already present.

Alfie answered 7/11, 2018 at 23:21 Comment(0)
A
3

If you need to convert the string to a specific character set without external libraries then:

public String convertStreamToString(InputStream is) throws IOException {
  try (ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();) {
    is.transferTo(baos);
    return baos.toString(StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
  }
}
Anet answered 12/12, 2020 at 13:50 Comment(0)
H
2
InputStreamReader i = new InputStreamReader(s);
BufferedReader str = new BufferedReader(i);
String msg = str.readLine();
System.out.println(msg);

Here s is your InputStream object which will get convert into String

Heger answered 30/5, 2013 at 14:52 Comment(2)
will it work if last 2 lines are inserted in do-while loop?Sepal
There is nothing in the question about lines.Girosol
W
2

You can use Cactoos:

String text = new TextOf(inputStream).asString();

UTF-8 encoding is the default one. If you need another one:

String text = new TextOf(inputStream, "UTF-16").asString();
Walleyed answered 6/8, 2017 at 18:8 Comment(0)
M
2

I have created this code, and it works. There are no required external plug-ins.

There is a converter String to Stream and Stream to String:

import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;

public class STRINGTOSTREAM {

    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        String text = "Hello Bhola..!\nMy Name Is Kishan ";

        InputStream strm = new ByteArrayInputStream(text.getBytes());    // Convert String to Stream

        String data = streamTostring(strm);

        System.out.println(data);
    }

    static String streamTostring(InputStream stream)
    {
        String data = "";

        try
        {
            StringBuilder stringbuld = new StringBuilder();
            int i;
            while ((i=stream.read())!=-1)
            {
                stringbuld.append((char)i);
            }
            data = stringbuld.toString();
        }
        catch(Exception e)
        {
            data = "No data Streamed.";
        }
        return data;
    }
Maciemaciel answered 28/6, 2018 at 12:45 Comment(0)
C
2

In Java 8 user lines() which return string on that we can perform collect(Collectors.joining())

Actual code is as below.

new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in)).lines().collect(Collectors.joining());
Confidential answered 23/2 at 16:13 Comment(1)
Take the tour and learn how to use markdown. Also, your answer does not contain anything that does not already appear in the other answers. Did I miss something?Globe
C
1

The following doesn't address the original question, but rather some of the responses.

Several responses suggest loops of the form

String line = null;
while((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
  // ...
}

or

for(String line = reader.readLine(); line != null; line = reader.readLine()) {
    // ...
}

The first form pollutes the namespace of the enclosing scope by declaring a variable "read" in the enclosing scope that will not be used for anything outside the for loop. The second form duplicates the readline() call.

Here is a much cleaner way of writing this sort of loop in Java. It turns out that the first clause in a for-loop doesn't require an actual initializer value. This keeps the scope of the variable "line" to within the body of the for loop. Much more elegant! I haven't seen anybody using this form anywhere (I randomly discovered it one day years ago), but I use it all the time.

for (String line; (line = reader.readLine()) != null; ) {
    //...
}
Confirmation answered 11/9, 2014 at 8:22 Comment(0)
T
1

Method to convert inputStream to String

public static String getStringFromInputStream(InputStream inputStream) {

    BufferedReader bufferedReader = null;
    StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
    String line;

    try {
        bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
                inputStream));
        while ((line = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null) {
            stringBuilder.append(line);
        }
    } catch (IOException e) {
        logger.error(e.getMessage());
    } finally {
        if (bufferedReader != null) {
            try {
                bufferedReader.close();
            } catch (IOException e) {
                logger.error(e.getMessage());
            }
        }
    }
    return stringBuilder.toString();
}
Tubercular answered 29/2, 2016 at 17:18 Comment(0)
A
1
InputStream  inputStream = null;
BufferedReader bufferedReader = null;
try {
    BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream));
    String stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
    String content;
    while((content = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null) {
        stringBuilder.append(content);
    }
    System.out.println("content of file::" + stringBuilder.toString());
}
catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}
finally {
    if(bufferedReader != null) {
        try {
            bufferedReader.close();
        }
        catch(IoException ex) {
           ex.printStackTrace();
        }
Aport answered 10/3, 2016 at 6:1 Comment(2)
An explanation would be in order. E.g., what is the idea/gist? From the Help Center: "...always explain why the solution you're presenting is appropriate and how it works". Please respond by editing (changing) your answer, not here in comments (*** *** *** *** *** without *** *** *** *** *** "Edit:", "Update:", or similar - the answer should appear as if it was written today).Langelo
Something seems to be missing at the end.Langelo
H
1

This solution to this question is not the simplest, but since NIO streams and channels have not been mentioned, here goes a version which uses NIO channels and a ByteBuffer to convert a stream into a string.

public static String streamToStringChannel(InputStream in, String encoding, int bufSize) throws IOException {
    ReadableByteChannel channel = Channels.newChannel(in);
    ByteBuffer byteBuffer = ByteBuffer.allocate(bufSize);
    ByteArrayOutputStream bout = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    WritableByteChannel outChannel = Channels.newChannel(bout);
    while (channel.read(byteBuffer) > 0 || byteBuffer.position() > 0) {
        byteBuffer.flip();  //make buffer ready for write
        outChannel.write(byteBuffer);
        byteBuffer.compact(); //make buffer ready for reading
    }
    channel.close();
    outChannel.close();
    return bout.toString(encoding);
}

Here is an example how to use it:

try (InputStream in = new FileInputStream("/tmp/large_file.xml")) {
    String x = streamToStringChannel(in, "UTF-8", 1);
    System.out.println(x);
}

The performance of this method should be good for large files.

Heinie answered 21/10, 2017 at 9:46 Comment(0)
D
1

If you're using AWS SDK v2, call IoUtils.toUtf8String():

public String convertStreamToString(InputStream is) {
    return IoUtils.toUtf8String(is);
}
Doughty answered 25/4, 2022 at 15:56 Comment(0)
R
1

How do I read / convert an InputStream into a String in Java?

You would provide one more possible solution where performance is the main concern, you can improve speed by using a BufferedReader to read the InputStream line by line, instead of reading the InputStream byte by byte. Here it is a code:

public String convertStreamToString(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {
    BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream));
    StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
    String line;
    while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
        stringBuilder.append(line).append("\n");
    }
    return stringBuilder.toString();
}

When compared to reading the input byte by byte, this method buffers the information and reads it in chunks, which can greatly improve performance.

Rollie answered 25/4, 2023 at 20:12 Comment(0)
G
0

This snippet was found in \sdk\samples\android-19\connectivity\NetworkConnect\NetworkConnectSample\src\main\java\com\example\android\networkconnect\MainActivity.java which is licensed under Apache License, Version 2.0 and written by Google.

/** Reads an InputStream and converts it to a String.
 * @param stream InputStream containing HTML from targeted site.
 * @param len Length of string that this method returns.
 * @return String concatenated according to len parameter.
 * @throws java.io.IOException
 * @throws java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException
 */
private String readIt(InputStream stream, int len) throws IOException, UnsupportedEncodingException {
    Reader reader = null;
    reader = new InputStreamReader(stream, "UTF-8");
    char[] buffer = new char[len];
    reader.read(buffer);
    return new String(buffer);
}
Ghats answered 20/2, 2014 at 15:28 Comment(0)
K
0

I suggest the StringWriter class for that problem.

StringWriter wt= new StringWriter();
IOUtils.copy(inputStream, wt, encoding);
String st= wt.toString();
Kosygin answered 28/3, 2019 at 8:49 Comment(1)
IOUtils has a simpler function for that.Nodular
D
0

I see a lot of just snippets but zero explanations as to WHY this the snippet is a good way. I'm going to limit myself to just plain Java. What's key to understand about Java:

  • java.io.InputStream is for reading bytes.
  • java.io.Reader is for reading character data.

You should NOT be reading InputStream and converting that to Strings yourself because the world we are in isn't single byte focused anymore. And this is where java.nio.charset.Charset objects come into play. Charset classes convert bytes -> char. They bridge java.io.InputStream and java.io.Reader. You have to have java.nio.charset.Charset to convert InputStream into a Reader.

I'm going to do this the low memory usage way (Well until you read the thing into a single string which will eat up the full memory, but dems the requirements ;-)

Here's the code:

public String readString(InputStream inStream) {
   char[] buffer = new char[2**16];
   try( Reader reader = new InputStreamReader( inStream, "UTF-8") ) {
      int length = -1;
      StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
      while( (length = reader.read( buffer, 0, buffer.length )) >= 0 ) {
          builder.append( buffer, 0, length );
      }
   }
   return builder.toString();
}

The key here is to use InputStreamReader to bridge between InputStream -> Reader where you can read character data. From there it's simple to build the string using a StringBuilder. Another important part of InputStreamReader is specifying the character encoding. In this case I used "UTF-8", but it could be "ISO-8859-1" or "UTF-16", etc.

Word to the wise. I didn't use BufferedInputStream or BufferedReader to wrap these. Those classes are overused. If you are calling Reader.read( char[], int start, int len) or other array read methods then you are providing a buffer. Your usage is mostly optimized (the size of the buffer is what is in question) There is no need to have BufferedInputStream create yet another buffer for you. You've allocated your buffer so there is zero advantage added by wrapping your InputStream in a BufferedInputStream. Now if you are calling InputStream.read() or Reader.read() then yes those classes are providing a speed boost by converting single byte/char reads into buffered reads. But most of the time people don't read byte by byte.

The only exception to that advice is if you want to use readLine in which case BufferedReader is your friend, and go right ahead and use it. A word of caution is in order. If you are reading a 1GB one line file it's going to take over 1GB of memory to read your file which is probably NOT what you want.

That's the tightest loop with minimal memory usage for reading the actual data. And that's why reading the full data into a String might not always be the best approach, but this code can be adapted to other situations. If you were write it out to a java.io.Writer that streamed it out to an external storage it'd be very tight.

Dehlia answered 3/3, 2023 at 19:15 Comment(2)
Re "I see a lot of just snippets but zero explanations as to WHY this the snippet is a good way.": The reason is probably that the posters don't understand it (blind plagiarism). But it is very hard to prove (or disprove).Langelo
Well I wasn't going to go that far, but I appreciate the sentiment. I just thought everyone was being too succinct. :-)Dehlia
O
0

Use java.util.Scanner to read InputStream into a String:

String result = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream))
                    .lines().collect(Collectors.joining("\n"));
Ornithic answered 29/12, 2023 at 19:24 Comment(1)
answer is a duplicate of an existing answer alreadyRatal
T
-1

I had Log4j available, so I was able to use the org.apache.log4j.lf5.util.StreamUtils.getBytes method to get the bytes, which I was able to convert into a string using the String constructor:

String result = new String(StreamUtils.getBytes(inputStream));
Tigre answered 12/5, 2014 at 18:4 Comment(1)
-1. Just because something is available doesn't mean it should be used. When you switch the logging provider, you're going to have to replace this. Also, it looks like it is internal and shouldn't really be used outside of log4j.Hydromedusa
W
-1

Also you can get InputStream from a specified resource path:

public static InputStream getResourceAsStream(String path)
{
    InputStream myiInputStream = ClassName.class.getResourceAsStream(path);
    if (null == myiInputStream)
    {
        mylogger.info("Can't find path = ", path);
    }

    return myiInputStream;
}

To get InputStream from a specific path:

public static URL getResource(String path)
{
    URL myURL = ClassName.class.getResource(path);
    if (null == myURL)
    {
        mylogger.info("Can't find resource path = ", path);
    }
    return myURL;
}
Wilks answered 26/5, 2016 at 5:7 Comment(1)
This does not answer the Question.Micronesian
D
-3
  InputStream IS=new URL("http://www.petrol.si/api/gas_prices.json").openStream();   

  ByteArrayOutputStream BAOS=new ByteArrayOutputStream();
  IOUtils.copy(IS, BAOS);
  String d= new String(BAOS.toByteArray(),"UTF-8");           

System.out.println(d);
Deepsea answered 10/5, 2013 at 17:25 Comment(3)
See the commet by ChristofferHammarström in the answer by HarryLime.Thorncombe
There is nothing in the question that would remotely suggest to which charset to convert to or that the solution should be immune to any charset.Deepsea
An explanation would be in order.Langelo
R
-5

Note: This probably isn't a good idea. This method uses recursion and thus will hit a StackOverflowError very quickly:

public String read (InputStream is) {
    byte next = is.read();
    return next == -1 ? "" : next + read(is); // Recursive part: reads next byte recursively
}
Ridenhour answered 17/11, 2015 at 3:23 Comment(8)
It is not just a bad choice. It will fail with a StackOverflowError if the input stream contains more than a few hundred characters.Micronesian
@StephenC That constitutes a bad choice in my opinionRidenhour
I agree. It is a "bad choice" to use a method that doesn't work (except in trivial cases). But not just a "bad choice". Anyhow, I am down voting because this is wrong ... not because it is a "bad choice". And also because you don't explain why this approach should not be used.Micronesian
@StephenC I don't fundamentally agree with you, but thank you for at least leaving a comment instead of just fly-by downvoting. Recursion overflow issues are system limitations, and this method is not wrong, it just causes memory issues faster (albeit MUCH faster) than other methods.Ridenhour
For the Java language and implementations, the absence of tail-call optimization is a deliberate design choice; see softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/272061/…. It should be viewed as inherent to Java. Certainly it is common to all extant mainstream Java implementations ... including Android.Micronesian
I liked your method, it's highly unusual. However, I don't get why it would "cause memory issues much faster"?Monazite
@Monazite because instead of running out when the RAM can't handle the memory being used, it dies when the stack can't handle more stack calls, which is a lot smaller of a number on any reasonable system.Ridenhour
Why not use a loop and a StringBuilder?Chuffy
F
-5

The easiest way, a one-liner:

public static void main(String... args) throws IOException {
    System.out.println(new String(Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get("csv.txt"))));
}
Featherstitch answered 6/11, 2021 at 16:34 Comment(0)
G
-10

Quick and easy:

String result = (String)new ObjectInputStream( inputStream ).readObject();
Gourmand answered 19/7, 2012 at 17:33 Comment(3)
I get java.io.StreamCorruptedException: invalid stream headerTedman
ObjectInputStream is about deserialization, and the stream have to respect the serialization protocol to work, which may not always true in the context of this question.Yiddish
An explanation would be in order.Langelo

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