Clone read bytes of BinaryReader

Question

I'm using a BinaryReader to parse certain data. I would like to copy the read bytes to a secondary stream. How can I do that?

If I derive from BinaryReader (I need to do that for a different reason anyway, actually), which methods do I need to overwrite for correct behavior?

Answer 1

BinaryReader isn't a real Stream... It is more an overlay on another stream. You could:

using (var yourStream = /* ... */)
using (var br = new BinaryReader(yourStream))
{
    using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
    {
        // Important the true, so that the ms remains open!
        using (var bw = new BinaryWriter(ms, Encoding.UTF8, true))
        {
            var readed = br.ReadInt32();
            bw.Write(readed); 
            // All the basic types are supported by various overlaods
        }

        // Here you have your ms... If you want to reread it:
        ms.Position = 0;

        using (var br2 = new BinaryReader(ms, Encoding.UTF8, true))
        {
            // Reread it
        }

        // Or copy it to another stream, or do whatever you want
    }
}

If you simply want to duplicate a stream on another stream while you are reading it, you can use something like:

public class CopyStream : Stream
{
    // This is the stream you want to read your data from
    public Stream ReadStream { get; set; }

    // This is the "logger" stream, where a copy of read data will be put
    public Stream LogStream { get; set; }

    public override int Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count)
    {
        int res = ReadStream.Read(buffer, offset, count);

        if (LogStream != null)
        {
            if (res > 0)
            {
                LogStream.Write(buffer, offset, res);
            }
        }

        return res;
    }

    public override int ReadByte()
    {
        int res = ReadStream.ReadByte();

        if (LogStream != null)
        {
            if (res >= 0)
            {
                LogStream.WriteByte((byte)res);
            }
        }

        return res;
    }

    public override bool CanSeek
    {
        get { return false; }
    }
}

You'll need to implement/throw NotImplementedException() many other methods, because Stream is an abstract class. Right click on the Stream, Implement Abstract Class will speedup this.

The basic use is:

var cs = new CopyStream
    {
        ReadStream = yourStream,
        LogStream = whereyouwanttoWriteStream,
    };

using (var br = new BinaryReader(CopyStream, Encoding.UTF8, true))
{
    // Here you can read normally from the BinaryReader.
    // Everything you read will be copied to LogStream 
}

Note that subclassing BinaryReader is quite complex, because each method loads the data in a different way, so there isn't a single "point of interception".