Converting file into Base64String and back again

Question

The title says it all:

1. I read in a tar.gz archive like so
2. break the file into an array of bytes
3. Convert those bytes into a Base64 string
4. Convert that Base64 string back into an array of bytes
5. Write those bytes back into a new tar.gz file

I can confirm that both files are the same size (the below method returns true) but I can no longer extract the copy version.

Am I missing something?

Boolean MyMethod(){
    using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader("C:\...\file.tar.gz")) {
        String AsString = sr.ReadToEnd();
        byte[] AsBytes = new byte[AsString.Length];
        Buffer.BlockCopy(AsString.ToCharArray(), 0, AsBytes, 0, AsBytes.Length);
        String AsBase64String = Convert.ToBase64String(AsBytes);

        byte[] tempBytes = Convert.FromBase64String(AsBase64String);
        File.WriteAllBytes(@"C:\...\file_copy.tar.gz", tempBytes);
    }
    FileInfo orig = new FileInfo("C:\...\file.tar.gz");
    FileInfo copy = new FileInfo("C:\...\file_copy.tar.gz");
    // Confirm that both original and copy file have the same number of bytes
    return (orig.Length) == (copy.Length);
}

EDIT: The working example is much simpler (Thanks to @T.S.):

Boolean MyMethod(){
    byte[] AsBytes = File.ReadAllBytes(@"C:\...\file.tar.gz");
    String AsBase64String = Convert.ToBase64String(AsBytes);

    byte[] tempBytes = Convert.FromBase64String(AsBase64String);
    File.WriteAllBytes(@"C:\...\file_copy.tar.gz", tempBytes);

    FileInfo orig = new FileInfo(@"C:\...\file.tar.gz");
    FileInfo copy = new FileInfo(@"C:\...\file_copy.tar.gz");
    // Confirm that both original and copy file have the same number of bytes
    return (orig.Length) == (copy.Length);
}

Thanks!

Answer 1

If you want for some reason to convert your file to base-64 string. Like if you want to pass it via internet, etc... you can do this

Byte[] bytes = File.ReadAllBytes("path");
String file = Convert.ToBase64String(bytes);

And correspondingly, read back to file:

Byte[] bytes = Convert.FromBase64String(b64Str);
File.WriteAllBytes(path, bytes);