Bytes and strings

[John Dann]

Just a detail about correctness/elegance (I think!) but it would be
useful to know for future reference:

I need to read a pre-existing binary file that contains as one of its
elements a 16-byte non-unicode string, which I need to assemble into a
..Net string for further processing. It seems like my only option for
reading the bytes from the file is to read them into a byte array. OK
well I can do this with a Binary Reader:

MyByteArray = BR.readbytes(16)

But is there then a more concise way of assembling the string?
Currently I'm doing:

For i as integer = 0 to 15
MyString &= chr(MyByteArray(i))
Next i

But is there a better way? Or are any alternatives not one-liners
either?

TIA
John Dann

 

[Jay B. Harlow [MVP - Outlook]]

John,

But is there a better way? Or are any alternatives not one-liners
either?

Yes there is a significantly better way.

Use a System.Text.Encoding object.

For example:

MyString = System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetString(MyByteArray)

Which will convert the byte array into a string based on the current Windows
Code Page as defined in the Regional settings in Control Panel.

Hope this helps
Jay

 

[Bob]

Have a look at System.BitConverter.

Bob

 

[Jay B. Harlow [MVP - Outlook]]

Bob,
Did you try BitConvert.ToString?

It converts the bytes to numbers then concatenates these together...

for example:

Dim bytes() As Byte = {&H42, &H6F, &H62}

Debug.WriteLine(BitConverter.ToString(bytes), "bitconverter")
Debug.WriteLine(System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetString(bytes),
"encoding")

Hope this helps
Jay

 

[Bob]

Heh heh oops... brain misfire.