File to byte[] in Java

Question

How do I convert a java.io.File to a byte[]?

Answer 1

It depends on what best means for you. Productivity wise, don't reinvent the wheel and use Apache Commons. Which is here IOUtils.toByteArray(InputStream input).

Answer 2

Let me add another solution without using third-party libraries. It re-uses an exception handling pattern that was proposed by Scott (link). And I moved the ugly part into a separate message (I would hide in some FileUtils class ;) )

public void someMethod() {
    final byte[] buffer = read(new File("test.txt"));
}

private byte[] read(final File file) {
    if (file.isDirectory())
        throw new RuntimeException("Unsupported operation, file "
                + file.getAbsolutePath() + " is a directory");
    if (file.length() > Integer.MAX_VALUE)
        throw new RuntimeException("Unsupported operation, file "
                + file.getAbsolutePath() + " is too big");

    Throwable pending = null;
    FileInputStream in = null;
    final byte buffer[] = new byte[(int) file.length()];
    try {
        in = new FileInputStream(file);
        in.read(buffer);
    } catch (Exception e) {
        pending = new RuntimeException("Exception occured on reading file "
                + file.getAbsolutePath(), e);
    } finally {
        if (in != null) {
            try {
                in.close();
            } catch (Exception e) {
                if (pending == null) {
                    pending = new RuntimeException(
                        "Exception occured on closing file" 
                             + file.getAbsolutePath(), e);
                }
            }
        }
        if (pending != null) {
            throw new RuntimeException(pending);
        }
    }
    return buffer;
}

Answer 3

Another Way for reading bytes from file

Reader reader = null;
    try {
        reader = new FileReader(file);
        char buf[] = new char[8192];
        int len;
        StringBuilder s = new StringBuilder();
        while ((len = reader.read(buf)) >= 0) {
            s.append(buf, 0, len);
            byte[] byteArray = s.toString().getBytes();
        }
    } catch(FileNotFoundException ex) {
    } catch(IOException e) {
    }
    finally {
        if (reader != null) {
            reader.close();
        }
    }

Answer 4

From JDK 7 you can use Files.readAllBytes(Path).

Example:

import java.io.File;
import java.nio.file.Files;

File file;
// ...(file is initialised)...
byte[] fileContent = Files.readAllBytes(file.toPath());

Answer 5

Simplest Way for reading bytes from file

import java.io.*;

class ReadBytesFromFile {
    public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception {
        // getBytes from anyWhere
        // I'm getting byte array from File
        File file = null;
        FileInputStream fileStream = new FileInputStream(file = new File("ByteArrayInputStreamClass.java"));

        // Instantiate array
        byte[] arr = new byte[(int) file.length()];

        // read All bytes of File stream
        fileStream.read(arr, 0, arr.length);

        for (int X : arr) {
            System.out.print((char) X);
        }
    }
}

Answer 6

import java.io.File;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Path;

File file = getYourFile();
Path path = file.toPath();
byte[] data = Files.readAllBytes(path);