Does String(byte[]) create a deep copy of the byte array?

Question

Or is it that it just gets a reference to it?

I have a byte array that gets re-written by an external library - is it safe to pass it into a String constructor, or should I create a clone first?

byte[] b = MagicLib.getData();
String s = new String(b);

// actually a pointer to previous memory, just with different data
b = MagicLib.getMoreData(); 

Answer 1

A String contains an array of chars, not bytes. Therefore, the String cannot share the byte's storage.

Additionally, note that the byte[] will be decoded into characters according to the platform default charset (per the documentation on String(byte[])), which implies further that a decoded version of the byte[] array has to be separately constructed.