CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#bitbinary-data
sollniss
sollniss

Reputation: 2005

How to best handle bit data in C#?

I'm trying to implement different signals containing different data and I implemented various datatypes in C# to manage the data cleanly (mainly structs, some enums). Most of these types are oddly sized, say some are 9 bit or 3 bit etc.

I implemented them as their closest equivalent basic C# type (most are byte, ushort or short, with some ints and uints).

What is the general way of handling such data types in C#? In the end I have to combine all the bits into one byte array, but I'm not sure how to combine them.

I thought about getting the byte array of each type with a BitConverter and putting all data as booleans into a BitArray which I than can convert back to a byte array. But I can't seem to split the byte array.

Another way to do it would be shifting every single variable I have, but that seems really dirty to do. If a type changed from 32 bit to 31 bit in the future that would seem like a hassle to change.

How is this usually done? Any best practices or something?

Basically I want to combine different sized data into one byte array. For example pack a 3 bit variable, a 2 bit boolean and a 11 bit value into 2 bytes.

Since I have the types implemented as C# types I can do BitArray arr = new BitArray(BitConverter.GetBytes((short)MyType)), but this would give me 16 bit while MyType might only have 9 bit.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 567

Answers (1)

Brian
Brian

Reputation: 25834

My task is only to implement the data structures and the packing as binary data in C#

To explicitly manipulate the in-memory layout of your structures:

Use StructLayout. Generally, this is only appropriate if dealing with interop or specialized memory constraints. See MSDN for examples/documentation. Note that you'll take a performance hit if your data is not byte-aligned.

To design a data structure:

Just use an existing solution like ASN.1 or Protobuf. This problem has already been addressed by experts; take advantage of their skills and knowledge. As an added bonus, using standard protocols makes it far easier for third parties to implement custom interfaces.

Upvotes: 0

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