Little Endian Input Stream

As everybody probably knows, Java only supports Big Endian streams but every once and a while you find yourself in the predicament of wanting to interface with a legacy system that wants to use little endian encoding. So I’m attaching a class that will allow you to use the nice DataInputStream API but that will read the data in little endian format.

*On a side note if you don’t know the difference between big and little endian or what the etymology of the term is. Endianess is basically to do start reading from the left most or right most bit (assuming bits were arranged in this fashion) you can find more information here. The term comes from Jonathan Swift’s satirical novel Gulliver’s Travels where there was a large disagreement about which side of one’s soft-boiled egg you should open.

public class LittleEndianDataInputStream extends InputStream implements DataInput {

	public LittleEndianDataInputStream(InputStream in) {
		this.in = in;
		this.d = new DataInputStream(in);
		w = new byte[8];
	}

	public int available() throws IOException {
		return d.available();
	}


	public final short readShort() throws IOException
	{
		d.readFully(w, 0, 2);
		return (short)(
				(w[1]&0xff) << 8 |
				(w[0]&0xff));
	}

	/**
	 * Note, returns int even though it reads a short.
	 */
	 public final int readUnsignedShort() throws IOException
	 {
		 d.readFully(w, 0, 2);
		 return (
				 (w[1]&0xff) << 8 |
				 (w[0]&0xff));
	 }

	 /**
	  * like DataInputStream.readChar except little endian.
	  */
	 public final char readChar() throws IOException
	 {
		 d.readFully(w, 0, 2);
		 return (char) (
				 (w[1]&0xff) << 8 |
				 (w[0]&0xff));
	 }

	 /**
	  * like DataInputStream.readInt except little endian.
	  */
	 public final int readInt() throws IOException
	 {
		 d.readFully(w, 0, 4);
		 return
		 (w[3])      << 24 |
		 (w[2]&0xff) << 16 |
		 (w[1]&0xff) <<  8 |
		 (w[0]&0xff);
	 }

	 /**
	  * like DataInputStream.readLong except little endian.
	  */
	 public final long readLong() throws IOException
	 {
		 d.readFully(w, 0, 8);
		 return
		 (long)(w[7])      << 56 |
		 (long)(w[6]&0xff) << 48 |
		 (long)(w[5]&0xff) << 40 |
		 (long)(w[4]&0xff) << 32 |
		 (long)(w[3]&0xff) << 24 |
		 (long)(w[2]&0xff) << 16 |
		 (long)(w[1]&0xff) <<  8 |
		 (long)(w[0]&0xff);
	 }

	 public final float readFloat() throws IOException {
		 return Float.intBitsToFloat(readInt());
	 }

	 public final double readDouble() throws IOException {
		 return Double.longBitsToDouble(readLong());
	 }

	 public final int read(byte b[], int off, int len) throws IOException {
		 return in.read(b, off, len);
	 }

	 public final void readFully(byte b[]) throws IOException {
		 d.readFully(b, 0, b.length);
	 }

	 public final void readFully(byte b[], int off, int len) throws IOException {
		 d.readFully(b, off, len);
	 }

	 public final int skipBytes(int n) throws IOException {
		 return d.skipBytes(n);
	 }

	 public final boolean readBoolean() throws IOException {
		 return d.readBoolean();
	 }

	 public final byte readByte() throws IOException {
		 return d.readByte();
	 }

	 public int read() throws IOException {
		 return in.read();
	 }

	 public final int readUnsignedByte() throws IOException {
		 return d.readUnsignedByte();
	 }

	 @Deprecated
	 public final String readLine() throws IOException {
		 return d.readLine();
	 }

	 public final String readUTF() throws IOException {
		 return d.readUTF();
	 }

	 public final void close() throws IOException {
		 d.close();
	 }

	 private DataInputStream d; // to get at high level readFully methods of
	 // DataInputStream
	 private InputStream in; // to get at the low-level read methods of
	 // InputStream
	 private byte w[]; // work array for buffering input
}

Download: LittleEndianDataInputStream.java

enjoy