How can I convert an int to byte array without the 0x00 bytes?

Question

I'm trying to convert an int value to a byte array, but I'm using the byte for MIDI information (meaning that the 0x00 byte which is returned when using GetBytes acts as a separator) which renders my MIDI information useless.

I would like to convert the int to an array which leaves out the 0x00 bytes and just contains the bytes which contain actual values. How can I do this?

Answer 1

Based on the info Ben added, this should do what you require:

    static byte[] VlqEncode(int value)
    {
        uint uvalue = (uint)value;
        if (uvalue < 128) return new byte[] { (byte)uvalue }; // simplest case
        // calculate length of buffer required
        int len = 0;            
        do {
            len++;
            uvalue >>= 7;
        } while (uvalue != 0);
        // encode (this is untested, following the VQL/Midi/protobuf confusion)
        uvalue = (uint)value;
        byte[] buffer = new byte[len];
        for (int offset = len - 1; offset >= 0; offset--)
        {
            buffer[offset] = (byte)(128 | (uvalue & 127)); // only the last 7 bits
            uvalue >>= 7;
        }
        buffer[len - 1] &= 127;
        return buffer;
    }

Answer 2

You've completely misunderstood what you need, but luckily you mentioned MIDI. You need to use the multi-byte encoding that MIDI defines, which is somewhat similar to UTF-8 in that less than 8 bits of data are placed into each octet, with the remaining providing information about the number of bits used.

See the description on wikipedia. Pay close attention to the fact that protobuf uses this encoding, you can probably reuse some of Google's code.