Byte order mark screws up file reading in Java

Question

I\'m trying to read CSV files using Java. Some of the files may have a byte order mark in the beginning, but not all. When present, the byte order gets read along with the r

Answer 1

EDIT: I've made a proper release on GitHub: https://github.com/gpakosz/UnicodeBOMInputStream

---

Here is a class I coded a while ago, I just edited the package name before pasting. Nothing special, it is quite similar to solutions posted in SUN's bug database. Incorporate it in your code and you're fine.

/* ____________________________________________________________________________
 * 
 * File:    UnicodeBOMInputStream.java
 * Author:  Gregory Pakosz.
 * Date:    02 - November - 2005    
 * ____________________________________________________________________________
 */
package com.stackoverflow.answer;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.PushbackInputStream;

/**
 * The UnicodeBOMInputStream class wraps any
 * InputStream and detects the presence of any Unicode BOM
 * (Byte Order Mark) at its beginning, as defined by
 * RFC 3629 - UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646
 * 
 * 
The
 * Unicode FAQ
 * defines 5 types of BOMs:

 * 
00 00 FE FF  = UTF-32, big-endian
 * 
FF FE 00 00  = UTF-32, little-endian
 * 
FE FF        = UTF-16, big-endian
 * 
FF FE        = UTF-16, little-endian
 * 
EF BB BF     = UTF-8
 * 

 * 
 * 
Use the {@link #getBOM()} method to know whether a BOM has been detected
 * or not.
 * 
 * 
Use the {@link #skipBOM()} method to remove the detected BOM from the
 * wrapped InputStream object.
 */
public class UnicodeBOMInputStream extends InputStream
{
  /**
   * Type safe enumeration class that describes the different types of Unicode
   * BOMs.
   */
  public static final class BOM
  {
    /**
     * NONE.
     */
    public static final BOM NONE = new BOM(new byte[]{},"NONE");

    /**
     * UTF-8 BOM (EF BB BF).
     */
    public static final BOM UTF_8 = new BOM(new byte[]{(byte)0xEF,
                                                       (byte)0xBB,
                                                       (byte)0xBF},
                                            "UTF-8");

    /**
     * UTF-16, little-endian (FF FE).
     */
    public static final BOM UTF_16_LE = new BOM(new byte[]{ (byte)0xFF,
                                                            (byte)0xFE},
                                                "UTF-16 little-endian");

    /**
     * UTF-16, big-endian (FE FF).
     */
    public static final BOM UTF_16_BE = new BOM(new byte[]{ (byte)0xFE,
                                                            (byte)0xFF},
                                                "UTF-16 big-endian");

    /**
     * UTF-32, little-endian (FF FE 00 00).
     */
    public static final BOM UTF_32_LE = new BOM(new byte[]{ (byte)0xFF,
                                                            (byte)0xFE,
                                                            (byte)0x00,
                                                            (byte)0x00},
                                                "UTF-32 little-endian");

    /**
     * UTF-32, big-endian (00 00 FE FF).
     */
    public static final BOM UTF_32_BE = new BOM(new byte[]{ (byte)0x00,
                                                            (byte)0x00,
                                                            (byte)0xFE,
                                                            (byte)0xFF},
                                                "UTF-32 big-endian");

    /**
     * Returns a String representation of this BOM
     * value.
     */
    public final String toString()
    {
      return description;
    }

    /**
     * Returns the bytes corresponding to this BOM value.
     */
    public final byte[] getBytes()
    {
      final int     length = bytes.length;
      final byte[]  result = new byte[length];

      // Make a defensive copy
      System.arraycopy(bytes,0,result,0,length);

      return result;
    }

    private BOM(final byte bom[], final String description)
    {
      assert(bom != null)               : "invalid BOM: null is not allowed";
      assert(description != null)       : "invalid description: null is not allowed";
      assert(description.length() != 0) : "invalid description: empty string is not allowed";

      this.bytes          = bom;
      this.description  = description;
    }

            final byte    bytes[];
    private final String  description;

  } // BOM

  /**
   * Constructs a new UnicodeBOMInputStream that wraps the
   * specified InputStream.
   * 
   * @param inputStream an InputStream.
   * 
   * @throws NullPointerException when inputStream is
   * null.
   * @throws IOException on reading from the specified InputStream
   * when trying to detect the Unicode BOM.
   */
  public UnicodeBOMInputStream(final InputStream inputStream) throws  NullPointerException,
                                                                      IOException

  {
    if (inputStream == null)
      throw new NullPointerException("invalid input stream: null is not allowed");

    in = new PushbackInputStream(inputStream,4);

    final byte  bom[] = new byte[4];
    final int   read  = in.read(bom);

    switch(read)
    {
      case 4:
        if ((bom[0] == (byte)0xFF) &&
            (bom[1] == (byte)0xFE) &&
            (bom[2] == (byte)0x00) &&
            (bom[3] == (byte)0x00))
        {
          this.bom = BOM.UTF_32_LE;
          break;
        }
        else
        if ((bom[0] == (byte)0x00) &&
            (bom[1] == (byte)0x00) &&
            (bom[2] == (byte)0xFE) &&
            (bom[3] == (byte)0xFF))
        {
          this.bom = BOM.UTF_32_BE;
          break;
        }

      case 3:
        if ((bom[0] == (byte)0xEF) &&
            (bom[1] == (byte)0xBB) &&
            (bom[2] == (byte)0xBF))
        {
          this.bom = BOM.UTF_8;
          break;
        }

      case 2:
        if ((bom[0] == (byte)0xFF) &&
            (bom[1] == (byte)0xFE))
        {
          this.bom = BOM.UTF_16_LE;
          break;
        }
        else
        if ((bom[0] == (byte)0xFE) &&
            (bom[1] == (byte)0xFF))
        {
          this.bom = BOM.UTF_16_BE;
          break;
        }

      default:
        this.bom = BOM.NONE;
        break;
    }

    if (read > 0)
      in.unread(bom,0,read);
  }

  /**
   * Returns the BOM that was detected in the wrapped
   * InputStream object.
   * 
   * @return a BOM value.
   */
  public final BOM getBOM()
  {
    // BOM type is immutable.
    return bom;
  }

  /**
   * Skips the BOM that was found in the wrapped
   * InputStream object.
   * 
   * @return this UnicodeBOMInputStream.
   * 
   * @throws IOException when trying to skip the BOM from the wrapped
   * InputStream object.
   */
  public final synchronized UnicodeBOMInputStream skipBOM() throws IOException
  {
    if (!skipped)
    {
      in.skip(bom.bytes.length);
      skipped = true;
    }
    return this;
  }

  /**
   * {@inheritDoc}
   */
  public int read() throws IOException
  {
    return in.read();
  }

  /**
   * {@inheritDoc}
   */
  public int read(final byte b[]) throws  IOException,
                                          NullPointerException
  {
    return in.read(b,0,b.length);
  }

  /**
   * {@inheritDoc}
   */
  public int read(final byte b[],
                  final int off,
                  final int len) throws IOException,
                                        NullPointerException
  {
    return in.read(b,off,len);
  }

  /**
   * {@inheritDoc}
   */
  public long skip(final long n) throws IOException
  {
    return in.skip(n);
  }

  /**
   * {@inheritDoc}
   */
  public int available() throws IOException
  {
    return in.available();
  }

  /**
   * {@inheritDoc}
   */
  public void close() throws IOException
  {
    in.close();
  }

  /**
   * {@inheritDoc}
   */
  public synchronized void mark(final int readlimit)
  {
    in.mark(readlimit);
  }

  /**
   * {@inheritDoc}
   */
  public synchronized void reset() throws IOException
  {
    in.reset();
  }

  /**
   * {@inheritDoc}
   */
  public boolean markSupported() 
  {
    return in.markSupported();
  }

  private final PushbackInputStream in;
  private final BOM                 bom;
  private       boolean             skipped = false;

} // UnicodeBOMInputStream

And you're using it this way:

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;

public final class UnicodeBOMInputStreamUsage
{
  public static void main(final String[] args) throws Exception
  {
    FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream("test/offending_bom.txt");
    UnicodeBOMInputStream ubis = new UnicodeBOMInputStream(fis);

    System.out.println("detected BOM: " + ubis.getBOM());

    System.out.print("Reading the content of the file without skipping the BOM: ");
    InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(ubis);
    BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(isr);

    System.out.println(br.readLine());

    br.close();
    isr.close();
    ubis.close();
    fis.close();

    fis = new FileInputStream("test/offending_bom.txt");
    ubis = new UnicodeBOMInputStream(fis);
    isr = new InputStreamReader(ubis);
    br = new BufferedReader(isr);

    ubis.skipBOM();

    System.out.print("Reading the content of the file after skipping the BOM: ");
    System.out.println(br.readLine());

    br.close();
    isr.close();
    ubis.close();
    fis.close();
  }

} // UnicodeBOMInputStreamUsage