Convert from BitArray to Byte

Question

I have a BitArray with the length of 8, and I need a function to convert it to a byte. How to do it?

Specifically, I need a correct function of Co

Answer 1

A poor man's solution:

protected byte ConvertToByte(BitArray bits)
{
    if (bits.Count != 8)
    {
        throw new ArgumentException("illegal number of bits");
    }

    byte b = 0;
    if (bits.Get(7)) b++;
    if (bits.Get(6)) b += 2;
    if (bits.Get(5)) b += 4;
    if (bits.Get(4)) b += 8;
    if (bits.Get(3)) b += 16;
    if (bits.Get(2)) b += 32;
    if (bits.Get(1)) b += 64;
    if (bits.Get(0)) b += 128;
    return b;
}

Answer 2

In addition to @JonSkeet's answer you can use an Extension Method as below:

public static byte ToByte(this BitArray bits)
{
    if (bits.Count != 8)
    {
        throw new ArgumentException("bits");
    }
    byte[] bytes = new byte[1];
    bits.CopyTo(bytes, 0);
    return bytes[0];
}

And use like:

BitArray foo = new BitArray(new bool[]
{
    false, false, false, false,false, false, false, true
});

foo.ToByte();

Answer 3

This should do the trick. However the previous answer is quite likely the better option.

    public byte ConvertToByte(BitArray bits)
    {
        if (bits.Count > 8)
            throw new ArgumentException("ConvertToByte can only work with a BitArray containing a maximum of 8 values");

        byte result = 0;

        for (byte i = 0; i < bits.Count; i++)
        {
            if (bits[i])
                result |= (byte)(1 << i);
        }

        return result;
    }

In the example you posted the resulting byte will be 0x80. In other words the first value in the BitArray coresponds to the first bit in the returned byte.

Answer 4

A bit late post, but this works for me:

public static byte[] BitArrayToByteArray(BitArray bits)
{
    byte[] ret = new byte[(bits.Length - 1) / 8 + 1];
    bits.CopyTo(ret, 0);
    return ret;
}

Works with:

string text = "Test";
byte[] bytes = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(text);
BitArray bits = new BitArray(bytes);
bytes[] bytesBack = BitArrayToByteArray(bits);
string textBack = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetString(bytesBack);
// bytes == bytesBack
// text = textBack

.

Answer 5

byte GetByte(BitArray input)
{
  int len = input.Length;
  if (len > 8)
    len = 8;
  int output = 0;
  for (int i = 0; i < len; i++)
    if (input.Get(i))
      output += (1 << (len - 1 - i)); //this part depends on your system (Big/Little)
      //output += (1 << i); //depends on system
  return (byte)output;
}

Cheers!

Answer 6

Little endian byte array converter : First bit (indexed with "0") in the BitArray assumed to represents least significant bit (rightmost bit in the bit-octet) which interpreted as "zero" or "one" as binary.

 public static class BitArrayExtender {

    public static byte[] ToByteArray( this BitArray bits ) {

        const int BYTE = 8;
        int length = ( bits.Count / BYTE ) + ( (bits.Count % BYTE == 0) ? 0 : 1 );
        var bytes  = new byte[ length ];

        for ( int i = 0; i < bits.Length; i++ ) {

           int bitIndex  = i % BYTE;
           int byteIndex = i / BYTE;

           int mask = (bits[ i ] ? 1 : 0) << bitIndex;
           bytes[ byteIndex ] |= (byte)mask;

        }//for

        return bytes;

    }//ToByteArray

 }//class