How do you convert binary data to Strings and back in Java?

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String(byte[]) treats the data as the default character encoding. So, how bytes get converted from 8-bit values to 16-bit Java Unicode chars will vary not only between operating systems, but can even vary between different users using different codepages on the same machine! This constructor is only good for decoding one of your own text files. Do not try to convert arbitrary bytes to chars in Java!

Encoding as base64 is a good solution. This is how files are sent over SMTP (e-mail). The (free) Apache Commons Codec project will do the job.

byte[] bytes = loadFile(file);          
//all chars in encoded are guaranteed to be 7-bit ASCII
byte[] encoded = Base64.encodeBase64(bytes);
String printMe = new String(encoded, "US-ASCII");
System.out.println(printMe);
byte[] decoded = Base64.decodeBase64(encoded);

Alternatively, you can use the Java 6 DatatypeConverter:

import java.io.*;
import java.nio.channels.*;
import javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter;

public class EncodeDecode {    
  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    File file = new File("/bin/ls");
    byte[] bytes = loadFile(file, new ByteArrayOutputStream()).toByteArray();
    String encoded = DatatypeConverter.printBase64Binary(bytes);
    System.out.println(encoded);
    byte[] decoded = DatatypeConverter.parseBase64Binary(encoded);
    // check
    for (int i = 0; i < bytes.length; i++) {
      assert bytes[i] == decoded[i];
    }
  }

  private static <T extends OutputStream> T loadFile(File file, T out)
                                                       throws IOException {
    FileChannel in = new FileInputStream(file).getChannel();
    try {
      assert in.size() == in.transferTo(0, in.size(), Channels.newChannel(out));
      return out;
    } finally {
      in.close();
    }
  }
}

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