Convert 32bit binary string to byte - java

I am using FileInputStream to read a single byte at a time, I then turn it into a string using the Integer.toBinaryString(), and later need to cast it back into a byte.
here's my problem: java uses a 32bit byte, meaning that my string returned by Integer.toBinaryString() has a length of 32, and I've been getting quite frustrated trying to convert that back into a byte because methods like Byte.valueOf() and so on, all throw an error pertaining to the value being out of byte range.
Am I missing something? Or do I need to develop my own method.

I found the simple answer :|
public class abc
{
public static void main (String[] args)
{
byte b = -1;
String binString = Integer.toBinaryString(b); //value 1111,1111,1111,1111,1111,1111,1111,1111
new BigInteger(binString, 2).byteValue(); //value -1
}
}
It truncates the binString, but that doesn't effect the byte value, because the 24 bits on the left aren't really relevant to the byte.
Now, in the example above I'm using a BigInteger and its byteValue() method, the reason for that, and why I'm not just using a 0xff solution, is because the Integer.toBinaryString() in the code above will return a string digit (32 1's) with a length of 32 and this cannot be casted into an int or even a long, because it is too large a number/value. As a result of that, not being able to cast it into an int or long, one can't perform operations like & on it, so the solution is to trim the string of the of the 24 bits on the left, then one can cast/convert the shorter string into an int, which is what BigInteger does in the code above.
The byte will still maintain its value, because the value is only contained in the 8 bits on the right(staying true to what a byte is). The added 24 bits that java sometimes adds to the 8 bit byte, is for java's own purposes and can be ignored if need be, such as the example, the problem which spawned this thread.

Related

Get least significant bytes from an integer

I need to sum all data bytes in ByteArrayOutputStream, adding +1 to the result and taking the 2 least significant bytes.
int checksum = 1;
for(byte b : byteOutputStream.toByteArray()) {
checksum += b;
}
Any input on taking the 2 least significant bytes would be helpful. Java 8 is used in the environment.
If you really mean least significant bytes then:
checksum & 0xFFFF
If you meant that you want to take least significant bits from checksum, then:
checksum & 0x3
Add
checksum &= 0x0000ffff;
That will zero out everything to the left of the 2 least significant bytes.
Your question is a bit underspecified. You didn’t say neither, what you want to do with these two bytes nor how you want to store them (which depends on what you want to do).
To get to individual bytes, you can use
byte lowest = (byte)checksum, semiLowest=(byte)(checksum>>8);
In case you want to store them in a single integer variable, you have to decide, how these bytes are to be interpreted numerically, i.e signed or unsigned.
If you want a signed interpretation, the operation is as simple as
short lowest2bytes = (short)checksum;
If you want an unsigned interpretation, there’s the obstacle that Java has no dedicated type for that. There is a 2 byte sized unsigned type (char), but using it for numerical values can cause confusion when other code tries to interpret it as character value (i.e. when printing). So in that case, the best solution is to use an int variable again and only initialize it with the unsigned char value:
int lowest2bytes = (char)checksum;
Note that this is semantically equivalent to
int lowest2bytes = checksum&0xffff;
seen in other solutions.

Converting US-ASCII encoded byte to integer and back

I have a byte array that can be of size 2,3 or 4. I need to convert this to the correct integer value. I also need to do this in reverse, i.e an 2,3 or 4 character integer to a byte array.
e.g., raw hex bytes are : 54 and 49. The decoded string US-ASCII value is 61. So the integer answer needs to be 61.
I have read all the conversion questions on stackoverflow etc that I could find, but they all give the completely wrong answer, I dont know whether it could be the encoding?
If I do new String(lne,"US-ASCII"), where lne is my byte array, I get the correct 61. But when doing this ((int)lne[0] << 8) | ((int)lne[1] & 0xFF), I get the complete wrong answer.
This may be a silly mistake or I completely don't understand the number representation schemes in Java and the encoding/decoding idea.
Any help would be appreciated.
NOTE: I know I can just parse the String to integer, but I would like to know if there is a way to use fast operations like shifting and binary arithmetic instead?
Here's a thought on how to use fast operations like byte shifting and decimal arithmetic to speed this up. Assuming you have the current code:
byte[] token; // bytes representing a bunch of ascii numbers
int n = Integer.parseInt(new String(token)); // current approach
Then you could instead replace that last line and do the following (assuming no negative numbers, no foreign langauge characters, etc.):
int n = 0;
for (byte b : token)
n = 10*n + (b-'0');
Out of interest, this resulted in roughly a 28% speedup for me on a massive data set. I think this is due to not having to allocate new String objects and then trash them after each parseInt call.
You need two conversion steps. First, convert your ascii bytes to a string. That's what new String(lne,"us-ascii") does for you. Then, convert the string representation of the number to an actual number. For that you use something like Integer.parseInt(theString) -- remember to handle NumberFormatException.
As you say, new String(lne,"US-ASCII") will give you the correct string. To convert your String to an integer, use int myInt = Integer.parseInt(new String(lne,"US-ASCII"));

How can I read a file as unsigned bytes in Java?

How can I read a file to bytes in Java?
It is important to note that all the bytes need to be positive, i.e. the negative range cannot be used.
Can this be done in Java, and if yes, how?
I need to be able to multiply the contents of a file by a constant. I was assuming that I can read the bytes into a BigInteger and then multiply, however since some of the bytes are negative I am ending up with 12 13 15 -12 etc and get stuck.
Well, Java doesn't have the concept of unsigned bytes... the byte type is always signed, with values from -128 to 127 inclusive. However, this will interoperate just fine with other systems which have worked with unsigned values for example, C# code writing a byte of "255" will produce a file where the same value is read as "-1" in Java. Just be careful, and you'll be okay.
EDIT: You can convert the signed byte to an int with the unsigned value very easily using a bitmask. For example:
byte b = -1; // Imagine this was read from the file
int i = b & 0xff;
System.out.println(i); // 255
Do all your arithmetic using int, and then cast back to byte when you need to write it out again.
You generally read binary data from from files using FileInputStream or possibly FileChannel.
It's hard to know what else you're looking for at the moment... if you can give more details in your question, we may be able to help you more.
With the unsigned API in Java 8 you have Byte.toUnsignedInt. That'll be a lot cleaner than manually casting and masking out.
To convert the int back to byte after messing with it of course you just need a cast (byte)value
You wrote in a comment (please put such informations in the question - there is an edit link for this):
I need to be able to multiply the contents of a file by a constant.
I was assuming that I can read the bytes into a BigInteger and then
multiply, however since some of the bytes are negative I am ending
up with 12 13 15 -12 etc and gets stuck.
If you want to use the whole file as a BigInteger, read it in a byte[], and give this array (as a whole) to the BigInteger-constructor.
/**
* reads a file and converts the content to a BigInteger.
* #param f the file name. The content is interpreted as
* big-endian base-256 number.
* #param signed if true, interpret the file's content as two's complement
* representation of a signed number.
* if false, interpret the file's content as a unsigned
* (nonnegative) number.
*/
public static BigInteger fileToBigInteger(File f, boolean signed)
throws IOException
{
byte[] array = new byte[file.length()];
InputStream in = new FileInputStream(file);
int i = 0; int r;
while((r = in.read(array, i, array.length - i) > 0) {
i = i + r;
}
in.close();
if(signed) {
return new BigInteger(array);
}
else {
return new BigInteger(1, array);
}
}
Then you can multiply your BigInteger and save the result in a new file (using the toByteArray() method).
Of course, this very depends on the format of your file - my method assumes the file contains the result of the toByteArray() method, not some other format. If you have some other format, please add information about this to your question.
"I need to be able to multiply the contents of a file by a constant." seems quite a dubious goal - what do you really want to do?
If using a larger integer type internally is not a problem, just go with the easy solution, and add 128 to all integers before multiplying them. Instead of -128 to 127, you get 0 to 255. Addition is not difficult ;)
Also, remember that the arithmetic and bitwise operators in Java only returns integers, so:
byte a = 0;
byte b = 1;
byte c = a | b;
would give a compile time error since a | b returns an integer. You would have to to
byte c = (byte) a | b;
So I would suggest just adding 128 to all your numbers before you multiply them.
Some testing revealed that this returns the unsigned byte values in [0…255] range one by one from the file:
Reader bytestream = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
new FileInputStream(inputFileName), "ISO-8859-1"));
int unsignedByte;
while((unsignedByte = bytestream.read()) != -1){
// do work
}
It seems to be work for all bytes in the range, including those that no characters are defined for in ISO 8859-1.

Unsigned short in Java

How can I declare an unsigned short value in Java?
You can't, really. Java doesn't have any unsigned data types, except char.
Admittedly you could use char - it's a 16-bit unsigned type - but that would be horrible in my view, as char is clearly meant to be for text: when code uses char, I expect it to be using it for UTF-16 code units representing text that's interesting to the program, not arbitrary unsigned 16-bit integers with no relationship to text.
If you really need a value with exactly 16 bits:
Solution 1: Use the available signed short and stop worrying about the sign, unless you need to do comparison (<, <=, >, >=) or division (/, %, >>) operations. See this answer for how to handle signed numbers as if they were unsigned.
Solution 2 (where solution 1 doesn't apply): Use the lower 16 bits of int and remove the higher bits with & 0xffff where necessary.
This is a really stale thread, but for the benefit of anyone coming after. The char is a numeric type. It supports all of the mathematical operators, bit operations, etc. It is an unsigned 16.
We process signals recorded by custom embedded hardware so we handle a lot of unsigned 16 from the A-D's. We have been using chars all over the place for years and have never had any problems.
You can use a char, as it is an unsigned 16 bit value (though technically it is a unicode character so could potnetially change to be a 24 bit value in the future)... the other alternative is to use an int and make sure it is within range.
Don't use a char - use an int :-)
And here is a link discussing Java and the lack of unsigned.
From DataInputStream.java
public final int readUnsignedShort() throws IOException {
int ch1 = in.read();
int ch2 = in.read();
if ((ch1 | ch2) < 0)
throw new EOFException();
return (ch1 << 8) + (ch2 << 0);
}
It is not possible to declare a type unsigned short, but in my case, I needed to get the unsigned number to use it in a for loop. There is the method toUnsignedInt in the class Short that returns "the argument converted to int by an unsigned conversion":
short signedValue = -4767;
System.out.println(signedValue ); // prints -4767
int unsignedValue = Short.toUnsignedInt(signedValue);
System.out.println(unsingedValue); // prints 60769
Similar methods exist for Integer and Long:
Integer.toUnsignedLong
Long.toUnsignedString : In this case it ends up in a String because there isn't a bigger numeric type.
No such type in java
Yep no such thing if you want to use the value in code vs. bit operations.
"In Java SE 8 and later, you can use the int data type to represent an unsigned 32-bit integer, which has a minimum value of 0 and a maximum value of 232-1." However this only applies to int and long but not short :(
If using a third party library is an option, there is jOOU (a spin off library from jOOQ), which offers wrapper types for unsigned integer numbers in Java. That's not exactly the same thing as having primitive type (and thus byte code) support for unsigned types, but perhaps it's still good enough for your use-case.
import static org.joou.Unsigned.*;
// and then...
UShort s = ushort(1);
(Disclaimer: I work for the company behind these libraries)
No, really there is no such method, java is a high-level language. That's why Java doesn't have any unsigned data types.
He said he wanted to create a multi-dimensional short array. Yet no one suggested bitwise operators? From what I read you want to use 16 bit integers over 32 bit integers to save memory?
So firstly to begin 10,000 x 10,000 short values is 1,600,000,000 bits, 200,000,000 bytes, 200,000 kilobytes, 200 megabytes.
If you need something with 200MB of memory consumption you may want to redesign this idea. I also do not believe that will even compile let alone run. You should never initialize large arrays like that if anything utilize 2 features called On Demand Loading and Data Caching. Essentially on demand loading refers to the idea to only load data as it is needed. Then data caching does the same thing, but utilizes a custom frame work for delete old memory and adding new information as needed. This one is tricky to have GOOD speed performance. There are other things you can do, but those two are my favorite when done right.
Alright back to what I was saying about bitwise operators.
So a 32bit integer or in Java "int". You can store what are called "bits" to this so let's say you had 32 Boolean values which in Java all values take up 32 bits (except long) or for arrays they take up 8 for byte, 16 for short, and 32 for int. So unless you have arrays you don't get any memory benefits from using a byte or short. This does not mean you shouldn't use it as its a way to ensure you and others know the data range this value should have.
Now as I was saying you could effectively store 32 Booleans into a single integer by doing the following:
int many_booleans = -1; //All are true;
int many_booleans = 0; //All are false;
int many_booleans = 1 | 2 | 8; //Bits 1, 2, and 4 are true the rest are false;
So now a short consists of 16 bits so 16 + 16 = 32 which fits PERFECTLY within a 32bit integer. So every int value can consist of 2 short values.
int two_shorts = value | (value2 << 16);
So what the above is doing is value is something between -32768 and 32767 or as an unsigned value 0 - 65535. So let's say value equaled -1 so as an unsigned value it was 65535. This would mean bits 1 through 16 are turned on, but when actually performing the math consider the range 0 - 15.
So we need to then activate bits 17 - 32. So we must begin at something larger than 15 bits. So we begin at 16 bits. So by taking value2 and multiplying it by 65536 which is what "<< 16" does. We now would have let's say value2 equaled 3 it would be OR'd 3x65536 = 196608. So our integer value would equal 262143.
int assumed_value = 262143;
so let's say we want to retrieve the two 16bit integer values.
short value1 = (short)(assumed_value & 0xFFFF); //-1
short value2 = (short)(assumed_value >> 16); //=3
Also basically think of bitwise operators as powers of 2. That is all they really are. Never look at it terms of 0's and 1's. I mostly posted this to assist anyone who may come across this searching for unsigned short or even possibly multi-dimensional arrays. If there are any typo's I apologize quickly wrote this up.
Java does not have unsigned types. What do you need it for?
Java does have the 'byte' data type, however.
You can code yourself up a ShortUnsigned class and define methods for those operators you want. You won't be able to overload + and - and the others on them, nor have implicit type conversion with other primitive or numeric object types, alas.
Like some of the other answerers, I wonder why you have this pressing need for unsigned short that no other data type will fill.
Simple program to show why unsigned numbers are needed:
package shifttest;
public class ShiftTest{
public static void main(String[] args){
short test = -15000;
System.out.format ("0x%04X 0x%04X 0x%04X 0x%04X 0x%04X\n",
test, test>>1, test>>2, test>>3, test>>4);
}
}
results:
0xC568 0xFFFFE2B4 0xFFFFF15A 0xFFFFF8AD 0xFFFFFC56
Now for those that are not system types:
JAVA does an arithmetic shift because the operand is signed, however, there are cases where a logical shift would be appropriate but JAVA (Sun in particular), deemed it unnecessary, too bad for us on their short sightedness. Shift, And, Or, and Exclusive Or are limited tools when all you have are signed longer numbers. This is a particular problem when interfacing to hardware devices that talk "REAL" computer bits that are 16 bits or more. "char" is not guaranteed to work (it is two bytes wide now) but in several eastern gif based languages such as Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, require at least 3 bytes. I am not acquainted with the number need for sandscript style languages. The number of bytes does not depend on the programmer rather the standards committee for JAVA. So basing char as 16 bits has a downstream risk. To safely implement unsigned shorts JAVA, as special class is the best solution based on the aforementioned ambiguities. The downside of the class is the inability of overloading the mathematical operations for this special class. Many of the contributors for this thread of accurately pointed out these issues but my contribution is a working code example and my experience with 3 byte gifs languages in C++ under Linux.
//вот метод для получения аналога unsigned short
public static int getShortU(byte [] arr, int i ) throws Exception
{
try
{
byte [] b = new byte[2];
b[1] = arr[i];
b[0] = arr[i+1];
int k = ByteBuffer.wrap(b).getShort();
//if this:
//int k = ((int)b[0] << 8) + ((int)b[1] << 0);
//65536 = 2**16
if ( k <0) k = 65536+ k;
return k;
}
catch(Throwable t)
{
throw new Exception ("from getShort: i=" + i);
}
}

What is the best way to work around the fact that ALL Java bytes are signed?

In Java, there is no such thing as an unsigned byte.
Working with some low level code, occasionally you need to work with bytes that have unsigned values greater than 128, which causes Java to interpret them as a negative number due to the MSB being used for sign.
What's a good way to work around this? (Saying don't use Java is not an option)
It is actually possible to get rid of the if statement and the addition if you do it like this.
byte[] foobar = ..;
int value = (foobar[10] & 0xff);
This way Java doesn't interpret the byte as a negative number and flip the sign bit on the integer also.
When reading any single value from the array copy it into something like a short or an int and manually convert the negative number into the positive value it should be.
byte[] foobar = ..;
int value = foobar[10];
if (value < 0) value += 256 // Patch up the 'falsely' negative value
You can do a similar conversion when writing into the array.
Using ints is generally better than using shorts because java uses 32-bit values internally anyway (Even for bytes, unless in an array) so using ints will avoid unnecessary conversion to/from short values in the bytecode.
Probably your best bet is to use an integer rather than a byte. It has the room to allow for numbers greater than 128 without the overhead of having to create a special object to replace byte.
This is also suggested by people smarter than me (everybody)
http://www.darksleep.com/player/JavaAndUnsignedTypes.html
http://www.jguru.com/faq/view.jsp?EID=13647
The best way to do bit manipulation/unsigned bytes is through using ints. Even though they are signed they have plenty of spare bits (32 total) to treat as an unsigned byte. Also, all of the mathematical operators will convert smaller fixed precision numbers to int. Example:
short a = 1s;
short b = 2s;
int c = a + b; // the result is up-converted
short small = (short)c; // must cast to get it back to short
Because of this it is best to just stick with integer and mask it to get the bits that you are interested in. Example:
int a = 32;
int b = 128;
int foo = (a + b) | 255;
Here is some more info on Java primitive types http://mindprod.com/jgloss/primitive.html
One last trivial note, there is one unsigned fixed precision number in Java. That is the char primitive.
I know this is a very late response, but I came across this thread when trying to do the exact same thing. The issue is simply trying to determine if a Java byte is >127.
The simple solution is:
if((val & (byte)0x80) != 0) { ... }
If the real issue is >128 instead, just adding another condition to that if-statement will do the trick.
I guess you could just use a short to store them. Not very efficient, but really the only option besides some herculean effort that I have seen.

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