Determine the size of an InputStream

This is a REALLY old thread, but it was still the first thing to pop up when I googled the issue. So I just wanted to add this:

InputStream inputStream = conn.getInputStream();
int length = inputStream.available();

Worked for me. And MUCH simpler than the other answers here.

Warning This solution does not provide reliable results regarding the total size of a stream. Except from the JavaDoc:

Note that while some implementations of {@code InputStream} will return * the total number of bytes in the stream, many will not.

You can't determine the amount of data in a stream without reading it; you can, however, ask for the size of a file:

http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/io/File.html#length()

If that isn't possible, you can write the bytes you read from the input stream to a ByteArrayOutputStream which will grow as required.

I would read into a ByteArrayOutputStream and then call toByteArray() to get the resultant byte array. You don't need to define the size in advance (although it's possibly an optimisation if you know it. In many cases you won't)