I have the following code:
using (BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader(
File.Open(FILE_PATH, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.ReadWrite)))
{
int pos = 0;
int length = (int) br.BaseStream.Length;
while (pos < length)
{
b[pos] = br.ReadByte();
pos++;
}
pos = 0;
while (pos < length)
{
Console.WriteLine(Convert.ToString(b[pos]));
pos++;
}
}
The FILE_PATH is a const string that contains the path to the binary file being read. The binary file is a mixture of integers and characters. The integers are 1 bytes each and each character is written to the file as 2 bytes.
For example, the file has the following data :
1HELLO HOW ARE YOU45YOU ARE LOOKING GREAT //and so on
Please note: Each integer is associated with the string of characters following it. So 1 is associated with "HELLO HOW ARE YOU" and 45 with "YOU ARE LOOKING GREAT" and so on.
Now the binary is written (I do not know why but I have to live with this) such that '1' will take only 1 byte while 'H' (and other characters) take 2 bytes each.
So here is what the file actually contains:
0100480045..and so on Heres the breakdown:
01 is the first byte for the integer 1 0048 are the 2 bytes for 'H' (H is 48 in Hex) 0045 are the 2 bytes for 'E' (E = 0x45)
and so on.. I want my Console to print human readable format out of this file: That I want it to print "1 HELLO HOW ARE YOU" and then "45 YOU ARE LOOKING GREAT" and so on...
Is what I am doing correct? Is there an easier/efficient way? My line Console.WriteLine(Convert.ToString(b[pos])); does nothing but prints the integer value and not the actual character I want. It is OK for integers in the file but then how do I read out characters?
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks
I think what you are looking for is Encoding.GetString.
Since your string data is composed of 2 byte characters, how you can get your string out is:
for (int i = 0; i < b.Length; i++)
{
byte curByte = b[i];
// Assuming that the first byte of a 2-byte character sequence will be 0
if (curByte != 0)
{
// This is a 1 byte number
Console.WriteLine(Convert.ToString(curByte));
}
else
{
// This is a 2 byte character. Print it out.
Console.WriteLine(Encoding.Unicode.GetString(b, i, 2));
// We consumed the next character as well, no need to deal with it
// in the next round of the loop.
i++;
}
}