I am trying to use the method readblock, but I am confused.

Consider the code below:

FileStream fstream = new FileStream(filename, FileMode.Open);
StreamReader sreader = new StreamReader(fstream);


                int index1 = 0;
        int increment = 94;
        char[] buffer1 = ' ';
        string line_of_data = "";

        sreader.ReadBlock(buffer1,index1,increment);

My questions are:

How do I assign the results of the readblock?
I was thinking:
 buffer1 = sreader.ReadBlock(buffer1,index1,increment);

but, the results are already assigned in to buffer1 by method (I think).

What is the best way to convert the results to a string?

What kind of datatype is char[]?

Finally, why is this method returning an integer value?
Thanks,





Michael

Michael --

This code should do what you want:

                        char[] buffer1 = new char[200];
            int index1=0;
            int increment = 94;
            int charcount;
            string line_of_data;

            FileStream fs = new FileStream(filename,FileMode.Open);
            StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(fs);

            charcount = sr.ReadBlock(buffer1,index1,increment);
            Console.WriteLine(charcount.ToString());
            Console.WriteLine(buffer1);


As you can see, charcount is set equal to the (integer) value returned by ReadBlock. This value equals the number of characters ReadBlock has loaded into buffer1 -- either the number you requested in increment, or the total number left in the file, whichever is less.

buffer1 is an array of characters (char[]) and, since it is an Array Object, can use any of the properties and methods of the Array Class. This includes subscripting -- buffer1[35] references the 36th character in the buffer (remember arrays start at 0!)

I don't know any easy way of converting a character array to a string in C#. They were the same thing in pre-.NET versions of C and C++, but I think that has changed in C#. You could probably brute-force build a string from char[] like this:

                        using System.Text;

                        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
            for (int i=0; i<buffer1.Length; i++)
                sb.Append(buffer1[i]);
            line_of_data = sb.ToString();
            Console.WriteLine(line_of_data);
            Console.ReadLine();

HTH,

Will