Get an OutputStream into a String

Question

What's the best way to pipe the output from an java.io.OutputStream to a String in Java?

Say I have the method:

  writeToStream(Object o, OutputStream out)

Which writes certain data from the object to the given stream. However, I want to get this output into a String as easily as possible.

I'm considering writing a class like this (untested):

class StringOutputStream extends OutputStream {

  StringBuilder mBuf;

  public void write(int byte) throws IOException {
    mBuf.append((char) byte);
  }

  public String getString() {
    return mBuf.toString();
  }
}

But is there a better way? I only want to run a test!

Answer 1

I would use a ByteArrayOutputStream. And on finish you can call:

new String( baos.toByteArray(), codepage );

or better:

baos.toString( codepage );

For the String constructor, the codepage can be a String or an instance of java.nio.charset.Charset. A possible value is java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets.UTF_8.

The method toString() accepts only a String as a codepage parameter (stand Java 8).