public static String utf8(final byte[] buf) {
    try {
      return Bytes.toString(buf);
    } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
      return "[INVALID UTF-8]";
    }
  }
Helper to translate byte[]s to UTF8 strings
@param buf byte array
@return UTF8 decoded string value
hbase-examples/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/util/ClientUtils.java