Convert Byte Array to String

  • Thread starter Thread starter craig.wagner
  • Start date Start date
C

craig.wagner

I've got an application that is calling a command-line executable. The
command-line tool uses stdin and stdout as its interface, and it
expects a binary stream in and sends a binary stream out.

I have the calling side working and am capturing the return value into
a MemoryStream. Now I'm breaking up the MemoryStream into structures.

Some of the values coming back are character arrays which I want to
turn into strings. They are not length prefixed. Rather they are
fixed-length and null-padded. For example, the first bit of the return
DML looks like:

record
integer(4) ScannedBatchID;
ascii string(10) TestCode;
integer(1) RetestCode;

And so on...

I'm wrapping a BinaryReader around the MemoryStream and using the
appropriate Read* method to pull the values. For the strings I'm using
ReadChars and specifying the number of characters.

So here's my dilemma. If the string isn't full length, I get back a
string with trailing ASCII nulls (e.g. "ABCDEFGH\0\0"). I don't want
those trailing nulls in the string, so I created the following method.

private string GetNonTerminatedString( char [] chars )
{
string theString = String.Empty;

for( int i = 0; i < chars.Length; i++ )
{
if( chars == '\x0000' )
{
theString = new string( chars, 0, i );
break;
}
}

return theString;
}

I'm wondering if anyone has encountered anything like this and has a
more efficient solution?
 
I've got an application that is calling a command-line executable. The
command-line tool uses stdin and stdout as its interface, and it
expects a binary stream in and sends a binary stream out.

I have the calling side working and am capturing the return value into
a MemoryStream. Now I'm breaking up the MemoryStream into structures.

Some of the values coming back are character arrays which I want to
turn into strings. They are not length prefixed. Rather they are
fixed-length and null-padded. For example, the first bit of the return
DML looks like:

record
integer(4) ScannedBatchID;
ascii string(10) TestCode;
integer(1) RetestCode;

And so on...

I'm wrapping a BinaryReader around the MemoryStream and using the
appropriate Read* method to pull the values. For the strings I'm using
ReadChars and specifying the number of characters.

So here's my dilemma. If the string isn't full length, I get back a
string with trailing ASCII nulls (e.g. "ABCDEFGH\0\0"). I don't want
those trailing nulls in the string, so I created the following method.

private string GetNonTerminatedString( char [] chars )
{
string theString = String.Empty;

for( int i = 0; i < chars.Length; i++ )
{
if( chars == '\x0000' )
{
theString = new string( chars, 0, i );
break;
}
}

return theString;
}

I'm wondering if anyone has encountered anything like this and has a
more efficient solution?
Click to expand...


Maybe using Encoding.Ascii to get teh string and then using Trim() to remove
the trailing nulls?
 
Someone in our local .NET User Group responded with a simple solution
that worked like a charm.

myString.Replace( "\0", "" );
 
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