Question

I would like to encode data into a binary format in a buffer which I will later either write to a file or transfer over a socket. What C# class or classes would be best to use to create a List<byte> containing the binary data.

I will be storing integers, single byte character strings (i.e., ASCII), floating point numbers and other data in this buffer in a custom encoded format (for the strings) and regular binary numeric layout for the ints and floating point types.

BinaryWriter looks like it has the methods I need, but it has to manage a growing buffer for me that I want to produce a List<byte> result from when I am done encoding.

Thanks

Answer 1

BinaryWriter, writing to a MemoryStream. If you need more than the available memory, you can easily switch to a temporary file stream.

using (var myStream = new MemoryStream()) {
    using (var myWriter = new BinaryWriter(myStream)) {
        // write here
    }
    using (var myReader = new BinaryReader(myStream)) {
        // read here
    }

    // put the bytes into an array...
    var myBuffer = myStream.ToArray();

    // if you *really* want a List<Byte> (you probably don't- see my comment)
    var myBytesList = myStream.ToArray().ToList();
}