OutputStream - ApachePOI - Workbook.write to outputStream

Question

Hello,
I have a requirement, where an input XML from a webservice is read and have to create an MS Excel file sent via Oracle B2B to SFTP server. I have written a Java code that can read xml and write to MS Excel as a file if I use FileOutPutStream (for testing purpose). However, when I use an ByteArrayOutputStream, I get the ASCII in the Excel file.here is the spinet of the code,
public class xmlexcel implements Callout {
public void execute(CalloutContext calloutContext, List input,
                        List output) throws CalloutDomainException,
                                            CalloutSystemException {
ByteArrayOutputStream bos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
workbook.write(bos); //Write Workbook to ByteArrayOutputStream
        CalloutMessage cmOut;
        cmOut = new CalloutMessage(bos.toString());  //CalloutMessage can be either String or byte[]
output.add(cmOut);
bos.close();Also tried this,
ByteArrayOutputStream bos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
workbook.write(bos);
byte[] bytes = bos.toByteArray();
        CalloutMessage cmOut;
        cmOut = new CalloutMessage(bytes);
output.add(cmOut);
bos.close();In both the cases, the Excel (xls) file that gets created has ASCII values, like this, ÐÏࡱá;þÿ.
Any ideas and suggestions are greatly appreciated,
Ven

Answer 1

bos.toString()Don't do that. It takes binary data which isn't meant to represent text, and forces it into a text format. Only bad things can result from that, and you're seeing exactly what bad things.