diff --git a/src/testcases/org/apache/poi/hssf/usermodel/StreamUtility.java b/src/testcases/org/apache/poi/hssf/usermodel/StreamUtility.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..45ae4ac36
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/testcases/org/apache/poi/hssf/usermodel/StreamUtility.java
@@ -0,0 +1,131 @@
+/* ====================================================================
+   Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+   contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+   this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+   The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+   (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+   the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+   Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+   distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+   WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+   See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+   limitations under the License.
+==================================================================== */
+
+package org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.InputStream;
+import java.util.ArrayList;
+import java.util.List;
+
+/**
+ * Utility class to help test code verify that generated files do not differ from proof copies in 
+ * any significant detail.  Normally this task would be simple except for the presence of artifacts
+ * in the file that change every time it is generated.  Usually these volatile artifacts are  
+ * time-stamps, user names, or other machine dependent parameters.
+ *  
+ * @author Josh Micich
+ */
+public final class StreamUtility {
+
+	/**
+	 * Compares two streams with expected differences in specified regions.  The streams are
+     * expected to be of equal length and comparison is always byte for byte.  That is -
+     * differences can only involve exchanging each individual byte for another single byte.<br>
+     * Both input streams are closed.
+     *  
+	 * @param allowableDifferenceRegions array of integer pairs: (offset, length). 
+	 * Any differences encountered in these regions of the streams will be ignored
+	 * @return <code>null</code> if streams are identical, else the 
+	 * byte indexes of differing data.  If streams were different lengths,
+	 * the returned indexes will be -1 and the length of the shorter stream
+	 */
+	public static int[] diffStreams(InputStream isA, InputStream isB, int[] allowableDifferenceRegions) {
+
+		if((allowableDifferenceRegions.length % 2) != 0) {
+			throw new RuntimeException("allowableDifferenceRegions length is odd");
+		}
+		boolean success = false;
+		int[] result;
+        try {
+            result = diffInternal(isA, isB, allowableDifferenceRegions);
+            success = true;
+        } catch (IOException e) {
+            throw new RuntimeException(e);
+        } finally {
+            close(isA, success);
+            close(isB, success);
+        }
+        return result;
+	}
+
+	/**
+	 * @param success <code>false</code> if the outer method is throwing an exception.
+	 */
+    private static void close(InputStream is, boolean success) {
+        try {
+            is.close();
+        } catch (IOException e) {
+            if(success) {
+                // this is a new error. ok to throw
+                throw new RuntimeException(e);
+            }
+            // else don't subvert original exception. just print stack trace for this one
+            e.printStackTrace();
+        }
+    }
+
+    private static int[] diffInternal(InputStream isA, InputStream isB, int[] allowableDifferenceRegions)
+            throws IOException {
+		int offset = 0;
+		List temp = new ArrayList();
+		while (true) {
+			int b = isA.read();
+			int b2 = isB.read();
+			if (b == -1) {
+				// EOF
+				if (b2 == -1) {
+					return toPrimitiveIntArray(temp);
+				}
+				return new int[] { -1, offset, };
+			}
+			if (b2 == -1) {
+				return new int[] { -1, offset, };
+			}
+			if (b != b2 && !isIgnoredRegion(allowableDifferenceRegions, offset)) {
+				temp.add(new Integer(offset));
+			}
+			offset++;
+		}
+    }
+
+	private static boolean isIgnoredRegion(int[] allowableDifferenceRegions, int offset) {
+		for (int i = 0; i < allowableDifferenceRegions.length; i+=2) {
+			int start = allowableDifferenceRegions[i];
+			int end = start + allowableDifferenceRegions[i+1];
+			if(start <= offset && offset < end) {
+				return true;
+			}
+		}
+		return false;
+	}
+
+	private static int[] toPrimitiveIntArray(List temp) {
+		int nItems = temp.size();
+		if(nItems < 1) {
+			return null;
+		}
+		Integer[] boxInts = new Integer[nItems];
+		temp.toArray(boxInts);
+		
+		int[] result = new int[nItems];
+		for (int i = 0; i < result.length; i++) {
+			result[i] = boxInts[i].intValue();
+		}
+		return result;
+	}
+}