Reliable way to convert a file to a byte

Question

I found the following code on the web   private byte    StreamFile string filename       FileStream fs   new FileStream filename  FileMode Open FileAccess Read          Create a byte array of file stream length    byte   ImageData   new byte fs Length         Read block of bytes from stream into the byte array    fs Read ImageData 0 System Convert ToInt32 fs Length          Close the File Stream    fs Close       return ImageData    return the byte data     Is it reliable enough to use to convert a file to byte   in c   or is there a better way to do this

User · Answer

All these answers with  ReadAllBytes     Another  similar  I won t say duplicate  since they were trying to refactor their code  question was asked on SO here   Best way to read a large file into a byte array in C    A comment was made on one of the posts regarding  ReadAllBytes     File ReadAllBytes throws OutOfMemoryException with big files  tested with 630 MB file  and it failed      juanjo arana Mar 13  13 at 1 31   A better approach  to me  would be something like this  with BinaryReader   public static byte   FileToByteArray string fileName        byte   fileData   null       using  FileStream fs   File OpenRead fileName                   var binaryReader   new BinaryReader fs            fileData   binaryReader ReadBytes  int fs Length              return fileData      But that s just me     Of course  this all assumes you have the memory to handle the byte   once it is read in  and I didn t put in the File Exists check to ensure the file is there before proceeding  as you d do that before calling this code

User · Answer

Not to repeat what everyone already have said but keep the following cheat sheet handly for File manipulations    System IO File ReadAllBytes filename   File Exists filename  Path Combine folderName  resOfThePath        Path GetFullPath path                         converts a relative path to absolute one Path GetExtension path

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byte   bytes   File ReadAllBytes filename     or      var bytes   File ReadAllBytes filename

User · Answer

looks good enough as a generic version  You can modify it to meet your needs  if they re specific enough   also test for exceptions and error conditions  such as file doesn t exist or can t be read  etc   you can also do the following to save some space    byte   bytes   System IO File ReadAllBytes filename

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byte   bytes   System IO File ReadAllBytes filename     That should do the trick  ReadAllBytes opens the file  reads its contents into a new byte array  then closes it  Here s the MSDN page for that method

User · Answer

Others have noted that you can use the built-in File ReadAllBytes   The built-in method is fine  but it s worth noting that the code you post above is fragile for two reasons    Stream is IDisposable - you should place the FileStream fs   new FileStream filename  FileMode Open FileAccess Read  initialization in a using clause to ensure the file is closed   Failure to do this may mean that the stream remains open if a failure occurs  which will mean the file remains locked - and that can cause other problems later on  fs Read may read fewer bytes than you request   In general  the  Read method of a Stream instance will read at least one byte  but not necessarily all bytes you ask for   You ll need to write a loop that retries reading until all bytes are read   This page explains this in more detail

[c#] Reliable way to convert a file to a byte[]

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