Recipes

We’ve written some recipes that demonstrate how to solve common problems with Okio. Read through them to learn about how everything works together. Cut-and-paste these examples freely; that’s what they’re for.

These recipes work on all platforms: Java, Android, Kotlin/Native, and Kotlin/JS. See java.io Recipes for samples that integrate Java APIs.

Read a text file line-by-line (Java/Kotlin)

Use FileSystem.source(Path) to open a source stream to read a file. The returned Source interface is very small and has limited uses. Instead we wrap the source with a buffer. This has two benefits:

• It makes the API more powerful. Instead of the basic methods offered by Source, BufferedSource has dozens of methods to address most common problems concisely.

• It makes your program run faster. Buffering allows Okio to get more done with fewer I/O operations.

Each Source that is opened needs to be closed. The code that opens the stream is responsible for making sure it is closed.

JavaKotlin

Here we use Java’s try blocks to close our sources automatically.

public void readLines(Path path) throws IOException {
  try (Source fileSource = FileSystem.SYSTEM.source(path);
       BufferedSource bufferedFileSource = Okio.buffer(fileSource)) {

    while (true) {
      String line = bufferedFileSource.readUtf8Line();
      if (line == null) break;

      if (line.contains("square")) {
        System.out.println(line);
      }
    }

  }
}

This uses use to automatically close the streams. This prevents resource leaks, even if an exception is thrown.

fun readLines(path: Path) {
  FileSystem.SYSTEM.source(path).use { fileSource ->
    fileSource.buffer().use { bufferedFileSource ->
      while (true) {
        val line = bufferedFileSource.readUtf8Line() ?: break
        if ("square" in line) {
          println(line)
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

The readUtf8Line() API reads all of the data until the next line delimiter – either \n, \r\n, or the end of the file. It returns that data as a string, omitting the delimiter at the end. When it encounters empty lines the method will return an empty string. If there isn’t any more data to read it will return null.

JavaKotlin

The above Java program can be written more compactly by inlining the fileSource variable and by using a fancy for loop instead of a while:

public void readLines(Path path) throws IOException {
  try (BufferedSource source = Okio.buffer(FileSystem.SYSTEM.source(path))) {
    for (String line; (line = source.readUtf8Line()) != null; ) {
      if (line.contains("square")) {
        System.out.println(line);
      }
    }
  }
}

In Kotlin, we can use FileSystem.read() to buffer the source before our block and close the source afterwards. In the body of the block, this is a BufferedSource.

@Throws(IOException::class)
fun readLines(path: Path) {
  FileSystem.SYSTEM.read(path) {
    while (true) {
      val line = readUtf8Line() ?: break
      if ("square" in line) {
        println(line)
      }
    }
  }
}

The readUtf8Line() method is suitable for parsing most files. For certain use-cases you may also consider readUtf8LineStrict(). It is similar but it requires that each line is terminated by \n or \r\n. If it encounters the end of the file before that it will throw an EOFException. The strict variant also permits a byte limit to defend against malformed input.

JavaKotlin

public void readLines(Path path) throws IOException {
  try (BufferedSource source = Okio.buffer(FileSystem.SYSTEM.source(path))) {
    while (!source.exhausted()) {
      String line = source.readUtf8LineStrict(1024L);
      if (line.contains("square")) {
        System.out.println(line);
      }
    }
  }
}

@Throws(IOException::class)
fun readLines(path: Path) {
  FileSystem.SYSTEM.read(path) {
    while (!source.exhausted()) {
      val line = source.readUtf8LineStrict(1024)
      if ("square" in line) {
        println(line)
      }
    }
  }
}

Write a text file (Java/Kotlin)

Above we used a Source and a BufferedSource to read a file. To write, we use a Sink and a BufferedSink. The advantages of buffering are the same: a more capable API and better performance.

public void writeEnv(Path path) throws IOException {
  try (Sink fileSink = FileSystem.SYSTEM.sink(path);
       BufferedSink bufferedSink = Okio.buffer(fileSink)) {

    for (Map.Entry<String, String> entry : System.getenv().entrySet()) {
      bufferedSink.writeUtf8(entry.getKey());
      bufferedSink.writeUtf8("=");
      bufferedSink.writeUtf8(entry.getValue());
      bufferedSink.writeUtf8("\n");
    }

  }
}

There isn’t an API to write a line of input; instead we manually insert our own newline character. Most programs should hardcode "\n" as the newline character. In rare situations you may use System.lineSeparator() instead of "\n": it returns "\r\n" on Windows and "\n" everywhere else.

JavaKotlin

We can write the above program more compactly by inlining the fileSink variable and by taking advantage of method chaining:

public void writeEnv(Path path) throws IOException {
  try (BufferedSink sink = Okio.buffer(FileSystem.SYSTEM.sink(path))) {
    for (Map.Entry<String, String> entry : System.getenv().entrySet()) {
      sink.writeUtf8(entry.getKey())
        .writeUtf8("=")
        .writeUtf8(entry.getValue())
        .writeUtf8("\n");
    }
  }
}

In Kotlin, we can use FileSystem.write() to buffer the sink before our block and close the sink afterwards. In the body of the block, this is a BufferedSink.

@Throws(IOException::class)
fun writeEnv(path: Path) {
  FileSystem.SYSTEM.write(path) {
    for ((key, value) in System.getenv()) {
      writeUtf8(key)
      writeUtf8("=")
      writeUtf8(value)
      writeUtf8("\n")
    }
  }
}

In the above code we make four calls to writeUtf8(). Making four calls is more efficient than the code below because the VM doesn’t have to create and garbage collect a temporary string.

sink.writeUtf8(entry.getKey() + "=" + entry.getValue() + "\n"); // Slower!

UTF-8 (Java/Kotlin)

In the above APIs you can see that Okio really likes UTF-8. Early computer systems suffered many incompatible character encodings: ISO-8859-1, ShiftJIS, ASCII, EBCDIC, etc. Writing software to support multiple character sets was awful and we didn’t even have emoji! Today we’re lucky that the world has standardized on UTF-8 everywhere, with some rare uses of other charsets in legacy systems.

If you need another character set, readString() and writeString() are there for you. These methods require that you specify a character set. Otherwise you may accidentally create data that is only readable by the local computer. Most programs should use the UTF-8 methods only.

When encoding strings you need to be mindful of the different ways that strings are represented and encoded. When a glyph has an accent or another adornment it may be represented as a single complex code point (é) or as a simple code point (e) followed by its modifiers (´). When the entire glyph is a single code point that’s called NFC; when it’s multiple it’s NFD.

Though we use UTF-8 whenever we read or write strings in I/O, when they are in memory Java Strings use an obsolete character encoding called UTF-16. It is a bad encoding because it uses a 16-bit char for most characters, but some don’t fit. In particular, most emoji use two Java chars. This is problematic because String.length() returns a surprising result: the number of UTF-16 chars and not the natural number of glyphs.

	Café 🍩	Café 🍩
Form	NFC	NFD
Code Points	c  a  f  é    ␣   🍩	c  a  f  e  ´    ␣   🍩
UTF-8 bytes	43 61 66 c3a9 20 f09f8da9	43 61 66 65 cc81 20 f09f8da9
String.codePointCount	6	7
String.length	7	8
Utf8.size	10	11

For the most part Okio lets you ignore these problems and focus on your data. But when you need them, there are convenient APIs for dealing with low-level UTF-8 strings.

Use Utf8.size() to count the number of bytes required to encode a string as UTF-8 without actually encoding it. This is handy in length-prefixed encodings like protocol buffers.

Use BufferedSource.readUtf8CodePoint() to read a single variable-length code point, and BufferedSink.writeUtf8CodePoint() to write one.

JavaKotlin

public void dumpStringData(String s) throws IOException {
  System.out.println("                       " + s);
  System.out.println("        String.length: " + s.length());
  System.out.println("String.codePointCount: " + s.codePointCount(0, s.length()));
  System.out.println("            Utf8.size: " + Utf8.size(s));
  System.out.println("          UTF-8 bytes: " + ByteString.encodeUtf8(s).hex());
  System.out.println();
}

fun dumpStringData(s: String) {
  println("                       " + s)
  println("        String.length: " + s.length)
  println("String.codePointCount: " + s.codePointCount(0, s.length))
  println("            Utf8.size: " + s.utf8Size())
  println("          UTF-8 bytes: " + s.encodeUtf8().hex())
  println()
}

Golden Values (Java/Kotlin)

Okio likes testing. The library itself is heavily tested, and it has features that are often helpful when testing application code. One pattern we’ve found to be quite useful is “golden value” testing. The goal of such tests is to confirm that data encoded with earlier versions of a program can safely be decoded by the current program.

We’ll illustrate this by encoding a value using Java Serialization. Though we must disclaim that Java Serialization is an awful encoding system and most programs should prefer other formats like JSON or protobuf! In any case, here’s a method that takes an object, serializes it, and returns the result as a ByteString:

JavaKotlin

private ByteString serialize(Object o) throws IOException {
  Buffer buffer = new Buffer();
  try (ObjectOutputStream objectOut = new ObjectOutputStream(buffer.outputStream())) {
    objectOut.writeObject(o);
  }
  return buffer.readByteString();
}

@Throws(IOException::class)
private fun serialize(o: Any?): ByteString {
  val buffer = Buffer()
  ObjectOutputStream(buffer.outputStream()).use { objectOut ->
    objectOut.writeObject(o)
  }
  return buffer.readByteString()
}

There’s a lot going on here.

1. We create a buffer as a holding space for our serialized data. It’s a convenient replacement for ByteArrayOutputStream.

2. We ask the buffer for its output stream. Writes to a buffer or its output stream always append data to the end of the buffer.

3. We create an ObjectOutputStream (the encoding API for Java serialization) and write our object. The try block takes care of closing the stream for us. Note that closing a buffer has no effect.

4. Finally we read a byte string from the buffer. The readByteString() method allows us to specify how many bytes to read; here we don’t specify a count in order to read the entire thing. Reads from a buffer always consume data from the front of the buffer.

With our serialize() method handy we are ready to compute and print a golden value.

JavaKotlin

Point point = new Point(8.0, 15.0);
ByteString pointBytes = serialize(point);
System.out.println(pointBytes.base64());

val point = Point(8.0, 15.0)
val pointBytes = serialize(point)
println(pointBytes.base64())

We print the ByteString as base64 because it’s a compact format that’s suitable for embedding in a test case. The program prints this:

rO0ABXNyAB5va2lvLnNhbXBsZXMuR29sZGVuVmFsdWUkUG9pbnTdUW8rMji1IwIAAkQAAXhEAAF5eHBAIAAAAAAAAEAuAAAAAAAA

That’s our golden value! We can embed it in our test case using base64 again to convert it back into a ByteString:

JavaKotlin

ByteString goldenBytes = ByteString.decodeBase64("rO0ABXNyAB5va2lvLnNhbXBsZ"
    + "XMuR29sZGVuVmFsdWUkUG9pbnTdUW8rMji1IwIAAkQAAXhEAAF5eHBAIAAAAAAAAEAuA"
    + "AAAAAAA");

val goldenBytes = ("rO0ABXNyACRva2lvLnNhbXBsZXMuS290bGluR29sZGVuVmFsdWUkUG9pbnRF9yaY7cJ9EwIAA" +
  "kQAAXhEAAF5eHBAIAAAAAAAAEAuAAAAAAAA").decodeBase64()

The next step is to deserialize the ByteString back into our value class. This method reverses the serialize() method above: we append a byte string to a buffer then consume it using an ObjectInputStream:

JavaKotlin

private Object deserialize(ByteString byteString) throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException {
  Buffer buffer = new Buffer();
  buffer.write(byteString);
  try (ObjectInputStream objectIn = new ObjectInputStream(buffer.inputStream())) {
    return objectIn.readObject();
  }
}

@Throws(IOException::class, ClassNotFoundException::class)
private fun deserialize(byteString: ByteString): Any? {
  val buffer = Buffer()
  buffer.write(byteString)
  ObjectInputStream(buffer.inputStream()).use { objectIn ->
    return objectIn.readObject()
  }
}

Now we can test the decoder against the golden value:

JavaKotlin

ByteString goldenBytes = ByteString.decodeBase64("rO0ABXNyAB5va2lvLnNhbXBsZ"
    + "XMuR29sZGVuVmFsdWUkUG9pbnTdUW8rMji1IwIAAkQAAXhEAAF5eHBAIAAAAAAAAEAuA"
    + "AAAAAAA");
Point decoded = (Point) deserialize(goldenBytes);
assertEquals(new Point(8.0, 15.0), decoded);

val goldenBytes = ("rO0ABXNyACRva2lvLnNhbXBsZXMuS290bGluR29sZGVuVmFsdWUkUG9pbnRF9yaY7cJ9EwIAA" +
  "kQAAXhEAAF5eHBAIAAAAAAAAEAuAAAAAAAA").decodeBase64()!!
val decoded = deserialize(goldenBytes) as Point
assertEquals(point, decoded)

With this test we can change the serialization of the Point class without breaking compatibility.

Write a binary file (Java/Kotlin)

Encoding a binary file is not unlike encoding a text file. Okio uses the same BufferedSink and BufferedSource bytes for both. This is handy for binary formats that include both byte and character data.

Writing binary data is more hazardous than text because if you make a mistake it is often quite difficult to diagnose. Avoid such mistakes by being careful around these traps:

• The width of each field. This is the number of bytes used. Okio doesn’t include a mechanism to emit partial bytes. If you need that, you’ll need to do your own bit shifting and masking before writing.

• The endianness of each field. All fields that have more than one byte have endianness: whether the bytes are ordered most-significant to least (big endian) or least-significant to most (little endian). Okio uses the Le suffix for little-endian methods; methods without a suffix are big-endian.

• Signed vs. Unsigned. Java doesn’t have unsigned primitive types (except for char!) so coping with this is often something that happens at the application layer. To make this a little easier Okio accepts int types for writeByte() and writeShort(). You can pass an “unsigned” byte like 255 and Okio will do the right thing.

Method	Width	Endianness	Value	Encoded Value
writeByte	1		3	03
writeShort	2	big	3	00 03
writeInt	4	big	3	00 00 00 03
writeLong	8	big	3	00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03
writeShortLe	2	little	3	03 00
writeIntLe	4	little	3	03 00 00 00
writeLongLe	8	little	3	03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
writeByte	1		Byte.MAX_VALUE	7f
writeShort	2	big	Short.MAX_VALUE	7f ff
writeInt	4	big	Int.MAX_VALUE	7f ff ff ff
writeLong	8	big	Long.MAX_VALUE	7f ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
writeShortLe	2	little	Short.MAX_VALUE	ff 7f
writeIntLe	4	little	Int.MAX_VALUE	ff ff ff 7f
writeLongLe	8	little	Long.MAX_VALUE	ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 7f

This code encodes a bitmap following the BMP file format.

JavaKotlin

void encode(Bitmap bitmap, BufferedSink sink) throws IOException {
  int height = bitmap.height();
  int width = bitmap.width();

  int bytesPerPixel = 3;
  int rowByteCountWithoutPadding = (bytesPerPixel * width);
  int rowByteCount = ((rowByteCountWithoutPadding + 3) / 4) * 4;
  int pixelDataSize = rowByteCount * height;
  int bmpHeaderSize = 14;
  int dibHeaderSize = 40;

  // BMP Header
  sink.writeUtf8("BM"); // ID.
  sink.writeIntLe(bmpHeaderSize + dibHeaderSize + pixelDataSize); // File size.
  sink.writeShortLe(0); // Unused.
  sink.writeShortLe(0); // Unused.
  sink.writeIntLe(bmpHeaderSize + dibHeaderSize); // Offset of pixel data.

  // DIB Header
  sink.writeIntLe(dibHeaderSize);
  sink.writeIntLe(width);
  sink.writeIntLe(height);
  sink.writeShortLe(1);  // Color plane count.
  sink.writeShortLe(bytesPerPixel * Byte.SIZE);
  sink.writeIntLe(0);    // No compression.
  sink.writeIntLe(16);   // Size of bitmap data including padding.
  sink.writeIntLe(2835); // Horizontal print resolution in pixels/meter. (72 dpi).
  sink.writeIntLe(2835); // Vertical print resolution in pixels/meter. (72 dpi).
  sink.writeIntLe(0);    // Palette color count.
  sink.writeIntLe(0);    // 0 important colors.

  // Pixel data.
  for (int y = height - 1; y >= 0; y--) {
    for (int x = 0; x < width; x++) {
      sink.writeByte(bitmap.blue(x, y));
      sink.writeByte(bitmap.green(x, y));
      sink.writeByte(bitmap.red(x, y));
    }

    // Padding for 4-byte alignment.
    for (int p = rowByteCountWithoutPadding; p < rowByteCount; p++) {
      sink.writeByte(0);
    }
  }
}

@Throws(IOException::class)
fun encode(bitmap: Bitmap, sink: BufferedSink) {
  val height = bitmap.height
  val width = bitmap.width
  val bytesPerPixel = 3
  val rowByteCountWithoutPadding = bytesPerPixel * width
  val rowByteCount = (rowByteCountWithoutPadding + 3) / 4 * 4
  val pixelDataSize = rowByteCount * height
  val bmpHeaderSize = 14
  val dibHeaderSize = 40

  // BMP Header
  sink.writeUtf8("BM") // ID.
  sink.writeIntLe(bmpHeaderSize + dibHeaderSize + pixelDataSize) // File size.
  sink.writeShortLe(0) // Unused.
  sink.writeShortLe(0) // Unused.
  sink.writeIntLe(bmpHeaderSize + dibHeaderSize) // Offset of pixel data.

  // DIB Header
  sink.writeIntLe(dibHeaderSize)
  sink.writeIntLe(width)
  sink.writeIntLe(height)
  sink.writeShortLe(1) // Color plane count.
  sink.writeShortLe(bytesPerPixel * Byte.SIZE_BITS)
  sink.writeIntLe(0) // No compression.
  sink.writeIntLe(16) // Size of bitmap data including padding.
  sink.writeIntLe(2835) // Horizontal print resolution in pixels/meter. (72 dpi).
  sink.writeIntLe(2835) // Vertical print resolution in pixels/meter. (72 dpi).
  sink.writeIntLe(0) // Palette color count.
  sink.writeIntLe(0) // 0 important colors.

  // Pixel data.
  for (y in height - 1 downTo 0) {
    for (x in 0 until width) {
      sink.writeByte(bitmap.blue(x, y))
      sink.writeByte(bitmap.green(x, y))
      sink.writeByte(bitmap.red(x, y))
    }

    // Padding for 4-byte alignment.
    for (p in rowByteCountWithoutPadding until rowByteCount) {
      sink.writeByte(0)
    }
  }
}

The trickiest part of this program is the format’s required padding. The BMP format expects each row to begin on a 4-byte boundary so it is necessary to add zeros to maintain the alignment.

Encoding other binary formats is usually quite similar. Some tips:

• Write tests with golden values! Confirming that your program emits the expected result can make debugging easier.
• Use Utf8.size() to compute the number of bytes of an encoded string. This is essential for length-prefixed formats.
• Use Float.floatToIntBits() and Double.doubleToLongBits() to encode floating point values.

Communicate on a Socket (Java/Kotlin)

Note that Okio doesn’t yet support sockets on Kotlin/Native or Kotlin/JS.

Sending and receiving data over the network is a bit like writing and reading files. We use BufferedSink to encode output and BufferedSource to decode input. Like files, network protocols can be text, binary, or a mix of both. But there are also some substantial differences between the network and the file system.

With a file you’re either reading or writing but with the network you can do both! Some protocols handle this by taking turns: write a request, read a response, repeat. You can implement this kind of protocol with a single thread. In other protocols you may read and write simultaneously. Typically you’ll want one dedicated thread for reading. For writing you can use either a dedicated thread or use synchronized so that multiple threads can share a sink. Okio’s streams are not safe for concurrent use.

Sinks buffer outbound data to minimize I/O operations. This is efficient but it means you must manually call flush() to transmit data. Typically message-oriented protocols flush after each message. Note that Okio will automatically flush when the buffered data exceeds some threshold. This is intended to save memory and you shouldn’t rely on it for interactive protocols.

Okio builds on java.io.Socket for connectivity. Create your socket as a server or as a client, then use Okio.source(Socket) to read and Okio.sink(Socket) to write. These APIs also work with SSLSocket. You should use SSL unless you have a very good reason not to!

Cancel a socket from any thread by calling Socket.close(); this will cause its sources and sinks to immediately fail with an IOException. You can also configure timeouts for all socket operations. You don’t need a reference to the socket to adjust timeouts: Source and Sink expose timeouts directly. This API works even if the streams are decorated.

As a complete example of networking with Okio we wrote a basic SOCKS proxy server. Some highlights:

JavaKotlin

Socket fromSocket = ...
BufferedSource fromSource = Okio.buffer(Okio.source(fromSocket));
BufferedSink fromSink = Okio.buffer(Okio.sink(fromSocket));

val fromSocket: Socket = ...
val fromSource = fromSocket.source().buffer()
val fromSink = fromSocket.sink().buffer()

Creating sources and sinks for sockets is the same as creating them for files. Once you create a Source or Sink for a socket you must not use its InputStream or OutputStream, respectively.

JavaKotlin

Buffer buffer = new Buffer();
for (long byteCount; (byteCount = source.read(buffer, 8192L)) != -1; ) {
  sink.write(buffer, byteCount);
  sink.flush();
}

val buffer = Buffer()
var byteCount: Long
while (source.read(buffer, 8192L).also { byteCount = it } != -1L) {
  sink.write(buffer, byteCount)
  sink.flush()
}

The above loop copies data from the source to the sink, flushing after each read. If we didn’t need the flushing we could replace this loop with a single call to BufferedSink.writeAll(Source).

The 8192 argument to read() is the maximum number of bytes to read before returning. We could have passed any value here, but we like 8 KiB because that’s the largest value Okio can do in a single system call. Most of the time application code doesn’t need to deal with such limits!

JavaKotlin

int addressType = fromSource.readByte() & 0xff;
int port = fromSource.readShort() & 0xffff;

val addressType = fromSource.readByte().toInt() and 0xff
val port = fromSource.readShort().toInt() and 0xffff

Okio uses signed types like byte and short, but often protocols want unsigned values. The bitwise & operator is Java’s preferred idiom to convert a signed value into an unsigned value. Here’s a cheat sheet for bytes, shorts, and ints:

Type	Signed Range	Unsigned Range	Signed to Unsigned
byte	-128..127	0..255	int u = s & 0xff;
short	-32,768..32,767	0..65,535	int u = s & 0xffff;
int	-2,147,483,648..2,147,483,647	0..4,294,967,295	long u = s & 0xffffffffL;

Java has no primitive type that can represent unsigned longs.

Hashing (Java/Kotlin)

We’re bombarded by hashing in our lives as Java programmers. Early on we’re introduced to the hashCode() method, something we know we need to override otherwise unforeseen bad things happen. Later we’re shown LinkedHashMap and its friends. These build on that hashCode() method to organize data for fast retrieval.

Elsewhere we have cryptographic hash functions. These get used all over the place. HTTPS certificates, Git commits, BitTorrent integrity checking, and Blockchain blocks all use cryptographic hashes. Good use of hashes can improve the performance, privacy, security, and simplicity of an application.

Each cryptographic hash function accepts a variable-length stream of input bytes and produces a fixed-length byte string value called the “hash”. Hash functions have these important qualities:

• Deterministic: each input always produces the same output.
• Uniform: each output byte string is equally likely. It is very difficult to find or create pairs of different inputs that yield the same output. This is called a “collision”.
• Non-reversible: knowing an output doesn’t help you to find the input. Note that if you know some possible inputs you can hash them to see if their hashes match.
• Well-known: the hash is implemented everywhere and rigorously understood.

Good hash functions are very cheap to compute (dozens of microseconds) and expensive to reverse (quintillions of millenia). Steady advances in computing and mathematics have caused once-great hash functions to become inexpensive to reverse. When choosing a hash function, beware that not all are created equal! Okio supports these well-known cryptographic hash functions:

• MD5: a 128-bit (16 byte) cryptographic hash. It is both insecure and obsolete because it is inexpensive to reverse! This hash is offered because it is popular and convenient for use in legacy systems that are not security-sensitive.
• SHA-1: a 160-bit (20 byte) cryptographic hash. It was recently demonstrated that it is feasible to create SHA-1 collisions. Consider upgrading from SHA-1 to SHA-256.
• SHA-256: a 256-bit (32 byte) cryptographic hash. SHA-256 is widely understood and expensive to reverse. This is the hash most systems should use.
• SHA-512: a 512-bit (64 byte) cryptographic hash. It is expensive to reverse.

Each hash creates a ByteString of the specified length. Use hex() to get the conventional human-readable form. Or leave it as a ByteString because that’s a convenient model type!

Okio can produce cryptographic hashes from byte strings:

JavaKotlin

ByteString byteString = readByteString(Path.get("README.md"));
System.out.println("   md5: " + byteString.md5().hex());
System.out.println("  sha1: " + byteString.sha1().hex());
System.out.println("sha256: " + byteString.sha256().hex());
System.out.println("sha512: " + byteString.sha512().hex());

val byteString = readByteString("README.md".toPath())
println("       md5: " + byteString.md5().hex())
println("      sha1: " + byteString.sha1().hex())
println("    sha256: " + byteString.sha256().hex())
println("    sha512: " + byteString.sha512().hex())

From buffers:

JavaKotlin

Buffer buffer = readBuffer(Path.get("README.md"));
System.out.println("   md5: " + buffer.md5().hex());
System.out.println("  sha1: " + buffer.sha1().hex());
System.out.println("sha256: " + buffer.sha256().hex());
System.out.println("sha512: " + buffer.sha512().hex());

val buffer = readBuffer("README.md".toPath())
println("       md5: " + buffer.md5().hex())
println("      sha1: " + buffer.sha1().hex())
println("    sha256: " + buffer.sha256().hex())
println("    sha512: " + buffer.sha512().hex())

While streaming from a source:

JavaKotlin

try (HashingSink hashingSink = HashingSink.sha256(Okio.blackhole());
     BufferedSource source = Okio.buffer(FileSystem.SYSTEM.source(path))) {
  source.readAll(hashingSink);
  System.out.println("sha256: " + hashingSink.hash().hex());
}

sha256(blackholeSink()).use { hashingSink ->
  FileSystem.SYSTEM.source(path).buffer().use { source ->
    source.readAll(hashingSink)
    println("    sha256: " + hashingSink.hash.hex())
  }
}

While streaming to a sink:

JavaKotlin

try (HashingSink hashingSink = HashingSink.sha256(Okio.blackhole());
     BufferedSink sink = Okio.buffer(hashingSink);
     Source source = FileSystem.SYSTEM.source(path)) {
  sink.writeAll(source);
  sink.close(); // Emit anything buffered.
  System.out.println("sha256: " + hashingSink.hash().hex());
}

sha256(blackholeSink()).use { hashingSink ->
  hashingSink.buffer().use { sink ->
    FileSystem.SYSTEM.source(path).use { source ->
      sink.writeAll(source)
      sink.close() // Emit anything buffered.
      println("    sha256: " + hashingSink.hash.hex())
    }
  }
}

Okio also supports HMAC (Hash Message Authentication Code) which combines a secret and a hash. Applications use HMAC for data integrity and authentication.

JavaKotlin

ByteString secret = ByteString.decodeHex("7065616e7574627574746572");
System.out.println("hmacSha256: " + byteString.hmacSha256(secret).hex());

val secret = "7065616e7574627574746572".decodeHex()
println("hmacSha256: " + byteString.hmacSha256(secret).hex())

As with hashing, you can generate an HMAC from a ByteString, Buffer, HashingSource, and HashingSink. Note that Okio doesn’t implement HMAC for MD5.

On Android and Java, Okio uses Java’s java.security.MessageDigest for cryptographic hashes and javax.crypto.Mac for HMAC. On other platforms Okio uses its own optimized implementation of these algorithms.

Encryption and Decryption

On Android and Java it’s easy to encrypt streams.

Callers are responsible for the initialization of the encryption or decryption cipher with the chosen algorithm, the key, and algorithm-specific additional parameters like the initialization vector. The following example shows a typical usage with AES encryption, in which key and iv parameters should both be 16 bytes long.

JavaKotlin

Use Okio.cipherSink(Sink, Cipher) or Okio.cipherSource(Source, Cipher) to encrypt or decrypt a stream using a block cipher.

void encryptAes(ByteString bytes, Path path, byte[] key, byte[] iv)
    throws GeneralSecurityException, IOException {
  Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
  cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, new SecretKeySpec(key, "AES"), new IvParameterSpec(iv));
  try (BufferedSink sink = Okio.buffer(
      Okio.cipherSink(FileSystem.SYSTEM.sink(path), cipher))) {
    sink.write(bytes);
  }
}

ByteString decryptAesToByteString(Path path, byte[] key, byte[] iv)
    throws GeneralSecurityException, IOException {
  Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
  cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, new SecretKeySpec(key, "AES"), new IvParameterSpec(iv));
  try (BufferedSource source = Okio.buffer(
      Okio.cipherSource(FileSystem.SYSTEM.source(path), cipher))) {
    return source.readByteString();
  }
}

Encryption and decryption functions are extensions on Cipher:

fun encryptAes(bytes: ByteString, path: Path, key: ByteArray, iv: ByteArray) {
  val cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding")
  cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, SecretKeySpec(key, "AES"), IvParameterSpec(iv))
  val cipherSink = FileSystem.SYSTEM.sink(path).cipherSink(cipher)
  cipherSink.buffer().use {
    it.write(bytes)
  }
}

fun decryptAesToByteString(path: Path, key: ByteArray, iv: ByteArray): ByteString {
  val cipher = Cipher.getInstance("AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding")
  cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, SecretKeySpec(key, "AES"), IvParameterSpec(iv))
  val cipherSource = FileSystem.SYSTEM.source(path).cipherSource(cipher)
  return cipherSource.buffer().use {
    it.readByteString()
  }
}