import java.io.RandomAccessFile ; ... java.io.File file = new java.io.File( "/tmp/file" ) ; RandomAccessFile stream = new RandomAccessFile(file , "rw") ; int len = 1024 ; String buffer ; try { byte[] b = new byte[len] ; int n = stream.read(b , 0 , len) ; if (n > 0) { buffer = new String(b,0,n) ; } }