UnsupportedOperationException with converting byte[] to float[]

Question

I\'m trying to convert a byte[] to a float[] by putting the byte[] in a ByteBuffer, converting this to a FloatBuffer (.asFloatBuffer), and then converting this to a

Answer 1

public static float[] toFloatArray(byte[] bytes) {
    float[] floats = new float[bytes.length/4];
    ByteBuffer.wrap(bytes).asFloatBuffer().get(floats).array();
    return floats;
}

The reason why you can't do return ByteBuffer.wrap(bytes).asFloatBuffer().array(); is that it creates a view of this byte buffer as a float buffer. Which means it's using the same memory. It's lightning fast, but needs a place to put it in memory that isn't being treated as a float[] AND byte[] hence why it can't give you the data back without new memory.

public static void convertFloatArray(byte[] bytes, float[] floats) {
    ByteBuffer.wrap(bytes).asFloatBuffer().get(floats,0,bytes.length/4);
}

It's just the class doesn't make its own memory but fiddles with the memory you give it, which is awesome, but could be confusing at times.