Question

First of all, sorry my poor english, please.
I’m trying to write a function, that sends an information about whatching video to the server. When server is unreachable, it writes it to the file and sends it later. So, i’m sending file name to my function, loading file with unsended names, makeing an array of names and sending all of them one by one. If any error appear, writing them back to file.

The problem is, that when I opening saved file, 1st symbol of string is disappeared. Don’t shure when axaclty: on write or read file.

Here is my code (It contains some unnesessary operations. It’s for testing):

     void sendLog (String name) {
            String FILENAME = "Log";
            String strToSave = "";
            String logString = null;
//opening file, just to see what it cantains:
            FileInputStream fis;
            try {
                    fis = openFileInput(FILENAME);
                    fis.read();
                     ByteArrayOutputStream content = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
                     int readBytes = 0;
                     byte[] sBuffer = new byte[512];
                     while ((readBytes = fis.read(sBuffer)) != -1) {
                         content.write(sBuffer, 0, readBytes);
                         }
                     logString = new String(content.toByteArray());
                 fis.close();
                 Log.d ("Log", "Loaded log: '"+logString+"'");
                } catch (IOException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                } 
            //saving empty file.
            FileOutputStream fos;
            try {
                Log.d ("Log", "Saving log: '"+strToSave+"'");
                fos = openFileOutput(FILENAME, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
                fos.write(strToSave.getBytes());
                fos.close();
            } catch (IOException e) {
                Log.d ("File WRITE", "can't write Log file");
                e.printStackTrace();
            } 


               //opening it agane, allready empty.
               try {
                    fis = openFileInput(FILENAME);
                    fis.read();
                     ByteArrayOutputStream content = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
                     int readBytes = 0;
                     byte[] sBuffer = new byte[512];
                     while ((readBytes = fis.read(sBuffer)) != -1) {
                         content.write(sBuffer, 0, readBytes);
                         }
                     logString = new String(content.toByteArray());
                    fis.close();
                    Log.d ("Log", "Loaded log: '"+logString+"'");
                } catch (IOException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                } 
                int cnt;
                //splitting loaded string to array
                if (logString.length()>1) {
                    logString = logString+name+",";
                    Log.d ("Log", "spliting log. length: "+logString.length());
                    log = logString.split(",");
                    long length = logString.length();
                    long length2 = 0;
                    cnt = 0;

//sorry for this code. Is there a better solution to know, how many strings in array?
                    for (int i = 0; length2<length; i++) {
                        length2 += playList[i].length()+1;
                        cnt++;
                    }
                }
                else {
                    log = new String[1];
                    log[0] = name+",";
                    cnt = 1;
                }
            //sending them one by one
                for (int i = 0; i<cnt; i++) { //playList[i].substring(2, playList[i].length()-1)
                    Log.d ("Log", "Sending log: '"+log[i].substring(0, log[i].length()-1) + "'");

                        HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();
                        HttpGet request = new HttpGet("server link here"
                       +log[i].substring(0, log[i].length()-1)); //need to exclude ","
                        try {
                            HttpResponse response = client.execute(request);
                        } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
//adding unsended name to string if any errors
                            strToSave = strToSave+log[i];
                            e.printStackTrace();
                        } catch (IOException e) {
                            strToSave = strToSave+log[i];
                            e.printStackTrace();
                        }
                }
//here should be empty string, but for testing i'm adding some:
            if (strToSave.length() == 0) strToSave = strToSave+log[0];//strToSave = " ";
            //saving it to file
            try {
                Log.d ("Log", "Saving log: '"+strToSave+"'");
                fos = openFileOutput(FILENAME, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
                fos.write(strToSave.getBytes());
                fos.close();
            } catch (IOException e) {
                Log.d ("File WRITE", "can't write Log file");
                e.printStackTrace();
            } 

        }

so, here is log in DDMS:

10-31 09:23:17.446: DEBUG/Log(2571): Loaded log: 'UB_MENUS,'
10-31 09:23:17.446: DEBUG/Log(2571): Saving log: ''
10-31 09:23:17.446: DEBUG/Log(2571): Loaded log: ''
10-31 09:23:17.446: DEBUG/Log(2571): Sending log: 'UPLOAD_SCREEN'
10-31 09:23:17.746: DEBUG/Log(2571): Saving log: 'UPLOAD_SCREEN,'
10-31 09:23:39.386: DEBUG/Log(2571): Loaded log: 'PLOAD_SCREEN,'
10-31 09:23:39.386: DEBUG/Log(2571): Saving log: ''
10-31 09:23:39.386: DEBUG/Log(2571): Loaded log: ''
10-31 09:23:39.386: DEBUG/Log(2571): Sending log: 'APP_BUTTON'
10-31 09:23:39.646: DEBUG/Log(2571): Saving log: 'APP_BUTTON,'

…

and so on.

Answer 1

What is this?

try {
    fis = openFileInput(FILENAME);

    //********************************************
    fis.read();   // <<-- Danger, Will Robinson !!
    //********************************************

    ByteArrayOutputStream content = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    int readBytes = 0;
    byte[] sBuffer = new byte[512];
    while ((readBytes = fis.read(sBuffer)) != -1) {
        content.write(sBuffer, 0, readBytes);
    }
    logString = new String(content.toByteArray());
    fis.close();
    Log.d ("Log", "Loaded log: '"+logString+"'");
} catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
} 

That naked fis.read() is going to read the first byte and toss it away. Then you’ll read the rest of the input stream to populate sBuffer. That’s the most likely cause of your missing character.