How to use Reader or InputStream to get byte[]

Question

Any opinions on the best way to get a byte[] using java.io.Reader or java.io.InputStream?
I haven't used these in anger before, so sorry for the rookie nature!
Any simple examples would be much appreciated!
Thanks

Answer 1

So sorry, I wasn't really listening . . . YOU WANT BYTE[]! OH! <8*O
From DataInputStream docs v1.3.1:
read
public final int read(byte[] b)
               throws IOException
    Reads some number of bytes from the contained input stream and stores them into the buffer array b. The number of bytes actually read is returned as an integer. This method blocks until input data is available, end of file is detected, or an exception is thrown.
    If b is null, a NullPointerException is thrown. If the length of b is zero, then no bytes are read and 0 is returned; otherwise, there is an attempt to read at least one byte. If no byte is available because the stream is at end of file, the value -1 is returned; otherwise, at least one byte is read and stored into b.
    The first byte read is stored into element b[0], the next one into b[1], and so on. The number of bytes read is, at most, equal to the length of b. Let k be the number of bytes actually read; these bytes will be stored in elements b[0] through b[k-1], leaving elements b[k] through b[b.length-1] unaffected.
    If the first byte cannot be read for any reason other than end of file, then an IOException is thrown. In particular, an IOException is thrown if the input stream has been closed.
    The read(b) method has the same effect as:
read(b, 0, b.length)
Overrides:
read in class FilterInputStream
Parameters:
b - the buffer into which the data is read. Returns:
the total number of bytes read into the buffer, or -1 if there is no more data because the end of the stream has been reached. Throws:
IOException - if an I/O error occurs.See Also:
FilterInputStream.in, InputStream.read(byte[], int, int)