OutputRepresentation, binary, and -1

[Denis Haskin]

I'm wondering if I'm misunderstanding something about 
OutputRepresentation and binary content.

I've got a test where I write the contents of a byte array in my 
OutputRepresentation.write() method.  It appears that this output is 
getting truncated when it hits a -1 in the binary content.

For example, with this test:

       OutputRepresentation r = new 
OutputRepresentation(MediaType.APPLICATION_EXCEL) {
           public void write(OutputStream stream) throws IOException {
               byte[] bytes = new byte[] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 
10, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9};
               stream.write(bytes);
           }
       };

I get 20 bytes when I read the stream later.

If I do this:

       OutputRepresentation r = new 
OutputRepresentation(MediaType.APPLICATION_EXCEL) {
           public void write(OutputStream stream) throws IOException {
               byte[] bytes = new byte[] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 
-1, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9};
               stream.write(bytes);
           }
       };

I only get 9 bytes when I read it.  Inspecting ByteUtils.getStream 
indicates this might be true, that -1 is being used as a flag byte to 
indicate the end of the stream.

Is that correct?

As you can see fromm this example, what I'm really trying to do is 
deliver Excel content to the browser... in this case it's an in-memory 
workbook (generated with Poi) and I'm just sending the bytes down.  I'm 
actually not sure if I need some encoding or whether just writing the 
byte stream is sufficient.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Denis haskin