Reusing Input Streams

Reading the same input stream twice can be useful in various scenarios. One such scenario is loading a remote image, saving it locally, and then accessing the saved image. To achieve this, it's more efficient to reuse the same input stream instead of creating a new one.

One way to reuse an input stream is by copying its contents to a byte array. This can be done using the org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils.copy method. The resulting byte array can then be used to create multiple ByteArrayInputStream objects, which can be repeatedly read.

Here's an example of how to do this:

ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils.copy(in, baos);
byte[] bytes = baos.toByteArray();

// Option 1: Read the byte array multiple times
while (needToReadAgain) {
    ByteArrayInputStream bais = new ByteArrayInputStream(bytes);
    yourReadMethodHere(bais);
}

// Option 2: Reset the input stream to read from it again
ByteArrayInputStream bais = new ByteArrayInputStream(bytes);
while (needToReadAgain) {
    bais.reset();
    yourReadMethodHere(bais);
}

Please note that this approach may not be suitable for large or infinite streams, as it involves copying the stream contents to memory.