How to Efficiently Convert a Stream to a Byte Array in .NET?

.NET flowing to the best practice of byte array conversion

The transforming input to byte array is a common task in programming. There are many ways to achieve this purpose. The best way depends on specific use cases and available resources.

Use binaryReader

In .NET 3.5, a commonly used method was to use the BinaryReader class, as shown in the code fragment below:

This method allocates an array of specified length and reads all the contents of the flow into the array. However, it depends on the accurate understanding of the flow length, and this is not always available.

Stream s;
byte[] b;

using (BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader(s))
{
    b = br.ReadBytes((int)s.Length);
}

Read and write in blocks

If the length of the flow is unreliable or unreliable, the use of circular segments to read flow may be more efficient:

This method repeatedly reads the data into the buffer until the end of the current. It accumulates data into MemoryStream before returning the byte array.

Or, in the .NET 4 and higher versions, you can use stream.copyto to achieve the same results as the above cycle:

public static byte[] ReadFully(Stream input)
{
    byte[] buffer = new byte[16 * 1024];
    using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
    {
        int read;
        while ((read = input.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) > 0)
        {
            ms.Write(buffer, 0, read);
        }
        return ms.ToArray();
    }
}

Other precautions

using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
{
    s.CopyTo(ms);
    return ms.ToArray();
}

The choice of these methods depends on several factors:

The reliability of the flow length:

If it is known and reliable, the use of binaryReader can improve efficiency.

Stream:

If the flow is large, it is best to use a block method to avoid excessive memory.
• Performance: In some cases, due to the reduction of memory overhead, the performance of the block method may be slightly better than the use of binaryReader.
• It is worth noting that stream.read cannot guarantee that it can read all request data at one time. Therefore, when ensuring all data, be sure to use a cycle or stream.copyto alternative method.

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