Creating a byte array from a stream

Question

What is the prefered method for creating a byte array from an input stream?

Here is my current solution with .NET 3.5.

Stream s;
byte[] b;

using (         


        

Answer 1

I get a compile time error with Bob's (i.e. the questioner's) code. Stream.Length is a long whereas BinaryReader.ReadBytes takes an integer parameter. In my case, I do not expect to be dealing with Streams large enough to require long precision, so I use the following:

Stream s;
byte[] b;

if (s.Length > int.MaxValue) {
  throw new Exception("This stream is larger than the conversion algorithm can currently handle.");
}

using (var br = new BinaryReader(s)) {
  b = br.ReadBytes((int)s.Length);
}