Question

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How to convert an int[,] to byte[] in C#

I want to send a 2D string array (string[n, m]) via socket and it has to be converted to byte array. How can I do that?

Answer 1

You could use the first 8 bytes to store the dimension of the array:

public static byte[] ToByteArray(string[,] input)
{
    using (var stream = new MemoryStream())
    using (var writer = new BinaryWriter(stream, Encoding.UTF8))
    {
        var rows = input.GetLength(0);
        var cols = input.GetLength(1);
        writer.Write(rows);
        writer.Write(cols);
        for (int i = 0; i < rows; i++)
        {
            for (int j = 0; j < cols; j++)
            {
                writer.Write(input[i, j]);
            }
        }
        return stream.ToArray();
    }
}

and to convert the byte array back to a 2D string array:

public static string[,] FromByteArray(byte[] input)
{
    using (var stream = new MemoryStream(input))
    using (var reader = new BinaryReader(stream, Encoding.UTF8))
    {
        var rows = reader.ReadInt32();
        var cols = reader.ReadInt32();
        var result = new string[rows, cols];
        for (int i = 0; i < rows; i++)
        {
            for (int j = 0; j < cols; j++)
            {
                result[i, j] = reader.ReadString();
            }
        }
        return result;
    }
}