Java: need to create PDF from byte array

Question

From a DB2 table I've got blob which I'm converting to a byte array so I can work with it. I need to take the byte array and create a PDF out of it.

This is what I have:

static void byteArrayToFile(byte[] bArray) {  
    try {  
        // Create file  
        FileWriter fstream = new FileWriter("out.pdf");  
        BufferedWriter out = new BufferedWriter(fstream);  
        for (Byte b: bArray) {  
            out.write(b);  
        }  
        out.close();  
    } catch (Exception e) {  
        System.err.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());  
    }  
}

But the PDF it creates is not right, it has a bunch of black lines running from top to bottom on it.

I was actually able to create the correct PDF by writing a web application using essentially the same process. The primary difference between the web application and the code about was this line:

response.setContentType("application/pdf");

So I know the byte array is a PDF and it can be done, but my code in byteArrayToFile won't create a clean PDF.

Any ideas on how I can make it work?

Answer 1

Sending your output through a FileWriter is corrupting it because the data is bytes, and FileWriters are for writing characters. All you need is:

OutputStream out = new FileOutputStream("out.pdf");
out.write(bArray);
out.close();