InputStream to String

private static String convertStreamToString(

InputStream is) throws IOException {
        /*
         * To convert the InputStream to String we use the Reader.read(char[]
         * buffer) method. We iterate until the Reader return -1 which means
         * there's no more data to read. We use the StringWriter class to
         * produce the string.
         */
        if (is != null) {
            Writer writer = new StringWriter();

            char[] buffer = new char[1024];
            try {
                Reader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is,
                        "UTF-8"));
                int n;
                while ((n = reader.read(buffer)) != -1) {
                    writer.write(buffer, 0, n);
                }
            } finally {
                is.close();
            }
            return writer.toString();
        } else {
            return "";
        }
    }