Skipping bytes

public int skip(long n) throws IOException

You might use this, for example, if you want to quickly move past a standard header or prefix to some data. For example, in the following code fragment skip() is used to move past some padding included in Java byte code to make sure that a jump table entry for a switch statement is aligned on a four byte boundary:

      case 171: // lookupswitch     
         pad = 3 - (position % 4);
         dis.skip(pad);
         defaultByte = dis.readInt();
         int npairs = dis.readInt();
         result = position + "    lookupswitch " + defaultByte + " " + npairs;
         for (int i = 0; i < npairs; i++) {
           int newPosition = position + pad + 12 + i*8;
           result += "\n" + newPosition + "    " 
            + dis.readInt() + " " + dis.readInt();
         }