Convert Stream to String Java/Groovy

For Groovy

filePath = ... //< a FilePath object
stream = filePath.read() //< InputStream object

// Specify the encoding, and get the String object
//content = stream.getText("UTF-16") 
content = stream.getText("UTF-8") 

The InputStream class reference

The getText() without encoding, it will use current system encoding, ex ("UTF-8").

Some good and fast answers. However I think the best one is Groovy has added a "getText" method to InputStream. So all I had to do was stream.text. And good call on the 4096 comment.