Converting java primitive types to and from binary format.

[Landon Blake]

Is there a class in the standard library, or a class in an open source library that allows the client code to easy convert a primitive type like boolean, long, double, or integer to binary form and back again? I don't want to use the DataInputStream and DataOutputStream for this purpose, since I'm not writing to files and this seems like overkill.

I can write my own class to do this work, but why reinvent the wheel?

Thanks for the help.

Landon

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

The wrapper classes have some methods to help you. The precise code you'd use depends on exactly what you want to do.

For instance, Float has the "floatToIntBits()" and "intBitsToFloat()" to get the exact bit representation of a float in and out of an Integer. An int created this way could be read in as a float by a C program (minding byte ordering, of course.) Double has a similar method.

Integer has toBinaryString() to produce "101010101..." from your favorite int.

[Landon Blake]

Thanks for the response. I acutally looked at the wrapper class for Long, but it doesn't appear to have a "toBits" method like Integer and Double. However, it does have a toBinaryString method. However, it doesn't look like Long has a method that creates a Long from a binary string representation. The decode method only works with decimal, hex, and octal. If I'm not missing something I'll have to whip up a utility class that contains the methods to move Long objects back and forth from a binary format.

Thanks for the help.

Landon

[Garrett Rowe]

However, it doesn't look like Long has a method that creates a Long from a binary string representation. The decode method only works with decimal, hex, and octal. If I'm not missing something I'll have to whip up a utility class that contains the methods to move Long objects back and forth from a binary format.

You're missing something. See Long.parseLong(String, int)
[ December 04, 2008: Message edited by: Garrett Rowe ]

[Landon Blake]

Call me a slimy salamander. I sure did miss it.

Thanks,

Landon

[Campbell Ritchie]

Originally posted by Landon Blake:
Call me a slimy salamander. I sure did miss it.

Thanks,

Landon

You're a slimy salamander.

Everybody does that sort of thing from time to time . . . think nothing of it