Question

While converting a Java application to C# I came through a strange and very annoying piece of code, which is crucial and works in the original version.

byte[] buf = new byte[length];
byte[] buf2 = bout.toByteArray();
System.arraycopy(buf2, 0, buf, 0, buf2.length);;
for (int i = (int) offset; i < (int) length; ++i) {
  buf[i] = (byte) 255;
}

The part which is causing a casting error is the set into buf[i] of the byte 255: while in Java it works fine, since java.lang.Byte spans from 0 to 255, .NET System.Byte spans from 0 to 254.
Because of this limitation, the output in the C# version of the application is that instead of 255, as expected, the buffer contains a set of 254.

Could anyone give me a viable alternative?

Thank you very much for the support.

Answer 1

I think you’ve misdiagnosed your problem: .NET bytes are 8-bit like everyone else’s. A better approach is to try to understand what the Java code is trying to do, then figure out what the cleanest equivalent is in C#.