Question

I’m trying to read a .wav file into an array of bytes to be sent over a socket connection and played on the other side. I’m coming up with a problem once the header data of the file is read, the rest of the file simply fills the byte array with 0. Here’s the sample code. I’ve tried a couple of other approaches but all yield the same result.

File audioIn = new File("assets/file.wav");
byte [] byteArray = new byte[filesize];
FileInputStream fileInStream = new FileInputStream(audioIn);
fileInStream.read(byteArray);

Here’s the debug data taken from individual bytes. The header information corresponds with what the Java methods have extracted before. From what I’ve read, the sound data should start at byte[44] however I’m getting the results below. The rest of the array is filled with 0s.

Byte 0: 82
Byte 1: 73
Byte 2: 70
Byte 3: 70
...
Byte 41: 97
Byte 42: 0
Byte 43: -68
Byte 44: -1
Byte 45: 1
Byte 46: 0
Byte 47: 0
...

It should also be noted that the header data will be discarded here as the WAVE information will be sent over beforehand. Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer 1

FileInputStream.read does not fill the byte array with data; it only reads what can be read in a single go. You would have to call it in a loop to read everything.

Alternatively you can use the DataInputStream.readFully method. If you are using Java 7 you could use Files.readAllBytes.