An elegant way to consume (all bytes of a) BinaryReader?

by

Original Answer (Read Update Below!)

Simply do:

byte[] allData = read1.ReadBytes(int.MaxValue);

The documentation says that it will read all bytes until the end of the stream is reached.

Update

Although this seems elegant, and the documentation seems to indicate that this would work, the actual implementation (checked in .NET 2, 3.5, and 4) allocates a full-size byte array for the data, which will probably cause an OutOfMemoryException on a 32-bit system.

Therefore, I would say that actually there isn’t an elegant way.

Instead, I would recommend the following variation of @iano’s answer. This variant doesn’t rely on .NET 4:
Create an extension method for BinaryReader (or Stream, the code is the same for either).

public static byte[] ReadAllBytes(this BinaryReader reader)
{
    const int bufferSize = 4096;
    using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
    {
        byte[] buffer = new byte[bufferSize];
        int count;
        while ((count = reader.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) != 0)
            ms.Write(buffer, 0, count);
        return ms.ToArray();
    }
    
}

More Related Contents:

  1. Reading large text files with streams in C#
  2. How do I save a stream to a file in C#?
  3. Does disposing streamreader close the stream?
  4. How to read a large (1 GB) txt file in .NET?
  5. How do I convert struct System.Byte byte[] to a System.IO.Stream object in C#?
  6. Should I call Close() or Dispose() for stream objects?
  7. “The given path’s format is not supported.”
  8. How to find and replace text in a file
  9. Stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin) or Position = 0
  10. How do I concatenate two System.IO.Stream instances into one?
  11. HttpWebRequest & Native GZip Compression
  12. Adding a Line to the Middle of a File with .NET
  13. When or if to Dispose HttpResponseMessage when calling ReadAsStreamAsync?
  14. How to get a MemoryStream from a Stream in .NET?
  15. How can I split (copy) a Stream in .NET?
  16. How to write this nested foreach loop query in LINQ?
  17. Getting image dimensions without reading the entire file
  18. How to read a PEM RSA private key from .NET
  19. Install a .NET windows service without InstallUtil.exe
  20. Check whether a path is valid
  21. Why is it impossible to override a getter-only property and add a setter? [closed]
  22. Working with AppDomain.AssemblyResolve event
  23. C# Windows Forms Application – Updating GUI from another thread AND class?
  24. Add vertical scroll bar to panel
  25. Could not load file or assembly ‘System.ValueTuple’
  26. How to eliminate flicker in Windows.Forms custom control when scrolling?
  27. Which objects can I use in a finalizer method?
  28. how to handle spaces in file path if the folder contains the space?
  29. Can I reuse HttpWebRequest without disconnecting from the server?
  30. Parsing field name with a colon in JSON

Leave a Comment