InputStream vs. InputStreamReader

Came across this lovely gem. When reading a binary stream in Java, don't use an InputStreamReader. The issue I ran into is when casting a read() into a byte, the value wasn't always what it should be. Luckily when I ran the checksum it failed, otherwise I problably would have never realized this. Reading the start of each packet was working, as did reading the expected number of bytes after the start of the packet. "Works" is a loose term, it was returning data, just not what I expected.

JD GUI

Came across this gem. Rather than fire up eclipse (although it's running most of the time anyway), if you need to quickly view the decompiled java source, there's a free tool called JD-GUI. It's fairly small, offers search capabilities and is very fast. It accepts a class file or a jar file, which is very convenient.

Grab a copy here: http://java.decompiler.free.fr/?q=jdgui