How to split a byte array

Question

I have a byte array in memory, read from a file. I would like to split the byte array at a certain point (index) without having to just create a new byte array and copy each byte at a time, increasing the in memory foot print of the operation. What I would like is something like this:

byte[] largeBytes = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9];  
byte[] smallPortion;  
smallPortion = split(largeBytes, 3);  

smallPortion would equal 1,2,3,4
largeBytes would equal 5,6,7,8,9

Answer 1

I tried different algorithms :

• Skip().Take() => the worst, by far
• Array.Copy
• ArraySegment
• new Guid(int, int16, int16 ...)

The latest being the fastest I'm now using this extension method:

        public static Guid ToGuid(this byte[] byteArray, int offset)
        {
            return new Guid(BitConverter.ToInt32(byteArray, offset), BitConverter.ToInt16(byteArray, offset + 4), BitConverter.ToInt16(byteArray, offset + 6), byteArray[offset + 8], byteArray[offset + 9], byteArray[offset + 10], byteArray[offset + 11], byteArray[offset + 12], byteArray[offset + 13], byteArray[offset + 14], byteArray[offset + 15]);
        }

With a byte array with 10000000 guids:

Done (Skip().Take()) in 1,156ms (for only 100000 guids :))
Done (Array.Copy) in 1,219ms
Done (ToGuid extension) in 994ms
Done (ArraySegment) in 2,411ms

Answer 2

You can't. What you might want is keep a starting point and number of items; in essence, build iterators. If this is C++, you can just use std::vector<int> and use the built-in ones.

In C#, I'd build a small iterator class that holds start index, count and implements IEnumerable<>.

Answer 3

As Eren said, you can use ArraySegment<T>. Here's an extension method and usage example:

public static class ArrayExtensionMethods
{
    public static ArraySegment<T> GetSegment<T>(this T[] arr, int offset, int? count = null)
    {
        if (count == null) { count = arr.Length - offset; }
        return new ArraySegment<T>(arr, offset, count.Value);
    }
}

void Main()
{
    byte[] arr = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 };
    var p1 = arr.GetSegment(0, 5);
    var p2 = arr.GetSegment(5);
    Console.WriteLine("First array:");
    foreach (byte b in p1)
    {
        Console.Write(b);
    }
    Console.Write("\n");
    Console.WriteLine("Second array:");
    foreach (byte b in p2)
    {
        Console.Write(b);
    }
}

Answer 4

This is how I would do that:

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;

class ArrayView<T> : IEnumerable<T>
{
    private readonly T[] array;
    private readonly int offset, count;

    public ArrayView(T[] array, int offset, int count)
    {
        this.array = array;
        this.offset = offset;
        this.count = count;
    }

    public int Length
    {
        get { return count; }
    }

    public T this[int index]
    {
        get
        {
            if (index < 0 || index >= this.count)
                throw new IndexOutOfRangeException();
            else
                return this.array[offset + index];
        }
        set
        {
            if (index < 0 || index >= this.count)
                throw new IndexOutOfRangeException();
            else
                this.array[offset + index] = value;
        }
    }

    public IEnumerator<T> GetEnumerator()
    {
        for (int i = offset; i < offset + count; i++)
            yield return array[i];
    }

    IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
    {
        IEnumerator<T> enumerator = this.GetEnumerator();
        while (enumerator.MoveNext())
        {
            yield return enumerator.Current;
        }
    }
}

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        byte[] arr = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 };
        ArrayView<byte> p1 = new ArrayView<byte>(arr, 0, 5);
        ArrayView<byte> p2 = new ArrayView<byte>(arr, 5, 5);
        Console.WriteLine("First array:");
        foreach (byte b in p1)
        {
            Console.Write(b);
        }
        Console.Write("\n");
        Console.WriteLine("Second array:");
        foreach (byte b in p2)
        {
            Console.Write(b);
        }
        Console.ReadKey();
    }
}

Answer 5

Try this one:

private IEnumerable<byte[]> ArraySplit(byte[] bArray, int intBufforLengt)
    {
        int bArrayLenght = bArray.Length;
        byte[] bReturn = null;

        int i = 0;
        for (; bArrayLenght > (i + 1) * intBufforLengt; i++)
        {
            bReturn = new byte[intBufforLengt];
            Array.Copy(bArray, i * intBufforLengt, bReturn, 0, intBufforLengt);
            yield return bReturn;
        }

        int intBufforLeft = bArrayLenght - i * intBufforLengt;
        if (intBufforLeft > 0)
        {
            bReturn = new byte[intBufforLeft];
            Array.Copy(bArray, i * intBufforLengt, bReturn, 0, intBufforLeft);
            yield return bReturn;
        }
    }

Answer 6

FYI. System.ArraySegment<T> structure basically is the same thing as ArrayView<T> in the code above. You can use this out-of-the-box structure in the same way, if you'd like.

Answer 7

In C# with Linq you can do this:

smallPortion = largeBytes.Take(4).ToArray();
largeBytes = largeBytes.Skip(4).Take(5).ToArray();

;)

Answer 8

I'm not sure what you mean by:

I would like to split the byte array at a certain point(index) without having to just create a new byte array and copy each byte at a time, increasing the in memory foot print of the operation.

In most languages, certainly C#, once an array has been allocated, there is no way to change the size of it. It sounds like you're looking for a way to change the length of an array, which you can't. You also want to somehow recycle the memory for the second part of the array, to create a second array, which you also can't do.

In summary: just create a new array.