DataInputStream

Generally you use a DataInputStream to read data written by a DataOutputStream. This format uses IEEE 754 for floating point data, big-endian format for integer data, and a modified UTF-8 for Unicode data.

DataInputStream has these methods:

 public DataInputStream(InputStream in)

 public final int     read(byte[] input) throws IOException
 public final int     read(byte[] input, int offset, int length) 
  throws IOException
 public final void    readFully(byte[] input) throws IOException
 public final void    readFully(byte[] input, int offset, int length) 
  throws IOException
 public final int     skipBytes(int n) throws IOException
 public final boolean readBoolean() throws IOException
 public final byte    readByte() throws IOException
 public final int     readUnsignedByte() throws IOException
 public final short   readShort() throws IOException
 public final int     readUnsignedShort() throws IOException
 public final char    readChar() throws IOException
 public final int     readInt() throws IOException
 public final long    readLong() throws IOException
 public final float   readFloat() throws IOException
 public final double  readDouble() throws IOException
 public final String  readUTF() throws IOException
 
 public static final String readUTF(DataInput in) throws IOException

The readFully() methods read repeatedly from the underlying stream until the byte array is filled. This contrasts with the regular read() methods which only read as many bytes as are available at the moment.

There's also a fairly common readLine() method that was used quite commonly in Java 1.0. However it's deprecated in favor of BufferedReader in Java 1.1