JAX-RS Tip of the Day: How Do I Read the Authorization Header?

I was looking for a simple method to read the HttpHeaders to determine the username and password for a request. I didn't find a quick answer so I wrote a simple utility method that will return the Base 64 decoded values from the authorization header.

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/**  * This method examines the request {@link HttpHeaders} for an authorization  * header. If the header is found, this will return the base64 decoded  * values of the username, and password.  *  * @param headers The headers to be examined.  * @return an array containing the username and password, or {@code null} if  * the authorization header was not present.  */ public String[] getAuthorization(HttpHeaders headers) {     String[] decoded = null;     List<String> header = headers.getRequestHeader("authorization");     if (header != null) {         String authorization = header.get(0);         // There is a space between "Basic" and the Base 64 encoded string.         authorization = authorization.substring("Basic ".length());         decoded = Base64.base64Decode(authorization).split(":");     }     return decoded; }