How do I convert an InputStream to a String in Java?

Question

Suppose I have an InputStream that contains text data, and I want to convert this to a String (for example, so I can write the contents of the stream to a log file).

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

public String convertStreamToString(InputStream is) {      // ??? } 

Answer 1

If you want to do it simply and reliably, I suggest using the Apache Jakarta Commons IO library IOUtils.toString(java.io.InputStream, java.lang.String) method.

Answer 2

This is my version,

public static String readString(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {      ByteArrayOutputStream into = new ByteArrayOutputStream();     byte[] buf = new byte[4096];     for (int n; 0 < (n = inputStream.read(buf));) {         into.write(buf, 0, n);     }     into.close();     return new String(into.toByteArray(), "UTF-8"); // Or whatever encoding }