Use:

import java.io.BufferedInputStream;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.IOException;

public static String readInputStreamAsString(InputStream in)
    throws IOException {

    BufferedInputStream bis = new BufferedInputStream(in);
    ByteArrayOutputStream buf = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    int result = bis.read();
    while(result != -1) {
      byte b = (byte)result;
      buf.write(b);
      result = bis.read();
    }
    return buf.toString();
}

快速简便：

String result = (String)new ObjectInputStream( inputStream ).readObject();

如果不能使用Commons IO（FileUtils/IOUtils/CopyUtils），下面是一个使用BufferedReader逐行读取文件的示例：

public class StringFromFile {
    public static void main(String[] args) /*throws UnsupportedEncodingException*/ {
        InputStream is = StringFromFile.class.getResourceAsStream("file.txt");
        BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is/*, "UTF-8"*/));
        final int CHARS_PER_PAGE = 5000; //counting spaces
        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(CHARS_PER_PAGE);
        try {
            for(String line=br.readLine(); line!=null; line=br.readLine()) {
                builder.append(line);
                builder.append('\n');
            }
        } 
        catch (IOException ignore) { }

        String text = builder.toString();
        System.out.println(text);
    }
}

或者，如果你想要原始速度，我会根据Paul de Vrieze的建议（避免使用StringWriter（内部使用StringBuffer））提出一个变体：

public class StringFromFileFast {
    public static void main(String[] args) /*throws UnsupportedEncodingException*/ {
        InputStream is = StringFromFileFast.class.getResourceAsStream("file.txt");
        InputStreamReader input = new InputStreamReader(is/*, "UTF-8"*/);
        final int CHARS_PER_PAGE = 5000; //counting spaces
        final char[] buffer = new char[CHARS_PER_PAGE];
        StringBuilder output = new StringBuilder(CHARS_PER_PAGE);
        try {
            for(int read = input.read(buffer, 0, buffer.length);
                    read != -1;
                    read = input.read(buffer, 0, buffer.length)) {
                output.append(buffer, 0, read);
            }
        } catch (IOException ignore) { }

        String text = output.toString();
        System.out.println(text);
    }
}

将inputStream转换为字符串的方法

public static String getStringFromInputStream(InputStream inputStream) {

    BufferedReader bufferedReader = null;
    StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
    String line;

    try {
        bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
                inputStream));
        while ((line = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null) {
            stringBuilder.append(line);
        }
    } catch (IOException e) {
        logger.error(e.getMessage());
    } finally {
        if (bufferedReader != null) {
            try {
                bufferedReader.close();
            } catch (IOException e) {
                logger.error(e.getMessage());
            }
        }
    }
    return stringBuilder.toString();
}

这是一个改编自org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils源代码的答案，适用于那些想要apache实现但不想要整个库的人。

private static final int BUFFER_SIZE = 4 * 1024;

public static String inputStreamToString(InputStream inputStream, String charsetName)
        throws IOException {
    StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
    InputStreamReader reader = new InputStreamReader(inputStream, charsetName);
    char[] buffer = new char[BUFFER_SIZE];
    int length;
    while ((length = reader.read(buffer)) != -1) {
        builder.append(buffer, 0, length);
    }
    return builder.toString();
}

  InputStream IS=new URL("http://www.petrol.si/api/gas_prices.json").openStream();   

  ByteArrayOutputStream BAOS=new ByteArrayOutputStream();
  IOUtils.copy(IS, BAOS);
  String d= new String(BAOS.toByteArray(),"UTF-8");           

System.out.println(d);