Character Textfile to binary Textfile

Question

I have a text file that contains a set of records and i am trying to convert and save it as 1's and 0's .. every time I use

Byte [] arr=Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(recordss) ;

and write it using a byte writer i still have to same record file with no difference.

So my question is there a way to convert a string to binary and write it to a file in binary format. I am using c# by the way

Here is my code so far

public static void serialData()
{
    FileStream recFile = new FileStream("Records.txt", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.ReadWrite);   //file to be used for records

    StreamReader recordRead = new StreamReader(recFile);

    String recordss = recordRead.ReadToEnd();        //Reads Record file

    recordRead.Close();
    recFile.Close();

    Byte [] arr=Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(recordss) ;

    FileStream file = new FileStream("Temp.txt", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write);
    StreamWriter binfile = new StreamWriter(file);

    for(int i =0; i < arr.Count();i++)
        binfile.WriteLine(arr[i]);

    binfile.Close();
    file.Close();
}

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 25 '13 at 11:15

1

There's a built-in function to convert from integer-type values to strings with binary representation. Try replacing the line

binfile.WriteLine(arr[i]);

by this line

binfile.WriteLine(
    Convert.ToString(arr[i], 2)
);

Convert.ToString() will convert the input to a representation in the given base. In this case, you choose 2 as base for a binary representation. Other common values would be 8 for octal, or 16 for hexadecimal.

answered Apr 25 '13 at 11:15

likeitlikeit

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I just got to ask , but how do I convert back from this when reading from a file – Mohamed Abdelfattah Apr 25 '13 at 11:53
@MohamedAbdelfattah have a look at [this answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/9149738/1553481), for instance. – likeitlikeit Apr 25 '13 at 11:57
THANK YOU FINALLY GOT THE CODE TO WORK .. YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY AND A GOOD WEEKEND :-) – Mohamed Abdelfattah Apr 25 '13 at 12:11
You're welcome. But take care, your CAPS LOCK key seems to be stuck :) – likeitlikeit Apr 25 '13 at 12:12

Askolein · Answer 2 · 2013-04-25T11:04:21.157

Your result is in 'byte' format. Always. By definition it is data. The way you 'see' it depends on the software you use to open it.

What you want is probably a file that when openned in a text editor 'shows' the underlying binary data of your original data source: as text. For this you'll have to write in the file as character '0' and '1'. Therefore, the final file will be a lot bigger thant the original data source.

Change this code:

for(int i =0; i < arr.Count();i++)
    binfile.WriteLine(arr[i]);

Into this:

foreach (byte b in arr)
{
    binfile.Write((b >> 7 & 1) == 0 ? '0' : '1');
    binfile.Write((b >> 6 & 1) == 0 ? '0' : '1');
    binfile.Write((b >> 5 & 1) == 0 ? '0' : '1');
    binfile.Write((b >> 4 & 1) == 0 ? '0' : '1');
    binfile.Write((b >> 3 & 1) == 0 ? '0' : '1');
    binfile.Write((b >> 2 & 1) == 0 ? '0' : '1');
    binfile.Write((b >> 1 & 1) == 0 ? '0' : '1');
    binfile.Write((b & 1) == 0 ? '0' : '1');
}

But it is kind of ugly. Better use an hexadecimal file viewer.

Thanks but i only got 1's in my file and i have about 7 records , they won't give me only that — Mohamed Abdelfattah, Apr 25 '13 at 11:13

Character Textfile to binary Textfile

2 Answers2