byte b = (byte)0xC8;
int v1 = b;       // v1 is -56 (0xFFFFFFC8)
int v2 = b & 0xFF // v2 is 200 (0x000000C8)

Most of the time v2 is the way you really need.

Java 8 provides Byte.toUnsignedInt to convert byte to int by unsigned conversion. In Oracle's JDK this is simply implemented as return ((int) x) & 0xff; because HotSpot already understands how to optimize this pattern, but it could be intrinsified on other VMs. More importantly, no prior knowledge is needed to understand what a call to toUnsignedInt(foo) does.

In total, Java 8 provides methods to convert byte and short to unsigned int and long, and int to unsigned long. A method to convert byte to unsigned short was deliberately omitted because the JVM only provides arithmetic on int and long anyway.

To convert an int back to a byte, just use a cast: (byte)someInt. The resulting narrowing primitive conversion will discard all but the last 8 bits.

In Java, Bytes are signed, which means a byte's value can be negative, and when that happens, @MattBall's original solution won't work.

For example, if the binary form of the bytes array are like this:

1000 1101 1000 1101

then myArray[0] is 1000 1101 and myArray[1] is 1000 1101, the decimal value of byte 1000 1101 is -115 instead of 141(= 2^7 + 2^3 + 2^2 + 2^0)

if we use

int result = (myArray[0] << 8) + myArray[1]

the value would be -16191 which is WRONG.

The reason why its wrong is that when we interpret a 2-byte array into integer, all the bytes are unsigned, so when translating, we should map the signed bytes to unsigned integer:

((myArray[0] & 0xff) << 8) + (myArray[1] & 0xff)

the result is 36237, use a calculator or ByteBuffer to check if its correct(I have done it, and yes, it's correct).

OK, so you have a big-endian byte array that you are converting to an int. I don't think it matters what the value of each byte is; you just need to stick them all together:

public int convertByteToInt(byte[] b)
{           
    int value= 0;
    for(int i=0; i<b.length; i++)
       value = (value << 8) | b[i];     
    return value;       
}

If I'm missing something here, let me know.

byte[] toByteArray(int value) {
     return  ByteBuffer.allocate(4).putInt(value).array();
}

byte[] toByteArray(int value) {
    return new byte[] { 
        (byte)(value >> 24),
        (byte)(value >> 16),
        (byte)(value >> 8),
        (byte)value };
}

int fromByteArray(byte[] bytes) {
     return ByteBuffer.wrap(bytes).getInt();
}
// packing an array of 4 bytes to an int, big endian, minimal parentheses
// operator precedence: <<, &, | 
// when operators of equal precedence (here bitwise OR) appear in the same expression, they are evaluated from left to right
int fromByteArray(byte[] bytes) {
     return bytes[0] << 24 | (bytes[1] & 0xFF) << 16 | (bytes[2] & 0xFF) << 8 | (bytes[3] & 0xFF);
}

// packing an array of 4 bytes to an int, big endian, clean code
int fromByteArray(byte[] bytes) {
     return ((bytes[0] & 0xFF) << 24) | 
            ((bytes[1] & 0xFF) << 16) | 
            ((bytes[2] & 0xFF) << 8 ) | 
            ((bytes[3] & 0xFF) << 0 );
}

When packing signed bytes into an int, each byte needs to be masked off because it is sign-extended to 32 bits (rather than zero-extended) due to the arithmetic promotion rule (described in JLS, Conversions and Promotions).

There's an interesting puzzle related to this described in Java Puzzlers ("A Big Delight in Every Byte") by Joshua Bloch and Neal Gafter . When comparing a byte value to an int value, the byte is sign-extended to an int and then this value is compared to the other int

byte[] bytes = (…)
if (bytes[0] == 0xFF) {
   // dead code, bytes[0] is in the range [-128,127] and thus never equal to 255
}

Note that all numeric types are signed in Java with exception to char being a 16-bit unsigned integer type.

Ignore checkstyle. 0xFF is not a magic number. If you define a constant for it, the constant is a magic constant, which is much less understandable than 0xFF itself. Every programmer educated in the recent centuries should be more familiar with 0xFF than with his girlfriend, if any.

should we write code like this?

for(int i = Math.ZERO; ... )