Converting List to byte[]

Question

How can I take a List and turn it into a byte array.

I thought there might be some clever LINQ options for it but am unsure eg/List.ForEach

1 byte[] for each string on the list or a single byte[] that containts all the strings on the list.? — Viv, Apr 12 '11 at 15:52

score 41 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 12 '11 at 15:51

41

Depends on which encoding you want to use to convert the string to a byte[] but here's a sample for ASCII. It can be substituted for pretty much any encoding type

List<string> data = ...
byte[] dataAsBytes = data
  .SelectMany(s => Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(s))
  .ToArray();

answered Apr 12 '11 at 15:51

JaredPar

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if you want new line for each item use `.GetBytes(s + Environment.NewLine))` – Maulik Jul 27 '22 at 05:25

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 12 '11 at 15:52

0

with a simple foreach loop:

(pseudocode)

    List<byte[]> bytes = new List<byte[]>();
    ForEach string el in somelist
        {
           byte[] arr;
           System.Text.UTF8Encoding  encoding=new System.Text.UTF8Encoding();
           arr = encoding.GetBytes(el);
           bytes.add(arr);
        }

answered Apr 12 '11 at 15:52

Tony The Lion

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2

That will give you a `List` but the OP asked for a `byte[]` – JaredPar Apr 12 '11 at 15:59

Converting List to byte[]

2 Answers2