how do i read a string from a `ByteReadChannel` ? i know there is `.readUTF8Line()` but what if my s...

# ktor

[LastExceed]

how do i read a string from a ByteReadChannel ? i know there is .readUTF8Line() but what if my string contains newlines ? do i have to convert the string to a bytearray and send that (preceded with its size) or is there a better way ?

[edenman]

this is what i do:

private suspend fun ByteReadChannel.readEntireUTF8(): String {
    val sb = StringBuilder()
    while (!isClosedForRead) {
      sb.append(readUTF8Line() ?: "")
    }
    return sb.toString()
  }

[edenman]

been working well in production for the last couple months but my N is still very small so ymmv

[edenman]

oh also i just re-read your message and i imagine you could just add a sb.append(“\n”) in that loop if you care about the newlines?

[LastExceed]

what i want is something like writeChannel.writeString(myString) on the sender side and val val myString = readChannel.readString() on the receiver side without having to worry about the content of the string. i achieved this by creating such extension function that do what i explained in op

[LastExceed]

suspend fun ByteReadChannel.readString(): String {
	ByteArray(readInt()).let {
		readFully(it)
		return it.toString(Charset.forName("UTF-8"))
	}
}

suspend fun ByteWriteChannel.writeString(string: String) {
	string.toByteArray().let {
		writeInt(it.size)
		writeFully(it)
	}
}

but it feels messy, and i honestly cant imagine that ktor doesnt already have some way to do this properly