c# left-shift nibbles in a byte array

What you're really needing to do is shift the entire second block of memory left four bits, seems to me. That means you'll do more than copy, you'll be shifting the "leading" (most significant) bits of byte n+1 into the "trailing" (least significant) nth byte. Here's a generic "bit shifter" for an array of bytes.

    byte[] shiftBlock(byte[] bytes, short bitShift)
    {
        byte[] newBytes = new byte[bytes.Length+1];
        for (int index=0;index < bytes.Length; index++)
        {
            // Each new byte is the current byte shifted left by "bitShift" bits,
            // followed by the first 8-bitShift bits of the next byte OR zero,
            // if we're at the end of the array. Shift the next-bytes bits to
            // the right, and OR the result together. 

            byte newByteMSB = (byte)(bytes[index] << bitShift); // shift left bitShift bits
            byte newByteLSB = (byte)((index==bytes.Length-1)?((byte)0):(bytes[index+1]));
            newByteLSB = (byte) (newByteLSB >> (8-bitShift));

            newBytes[index] = (byte) ( newByteMSB | newByteLSB);

        }

        return newBytes;
    }

You should be able to adapt this into a broader solution with the necessary caveats. I gave it a cursory test and it appears to work on the simple byte arrays I threw at it. Hope this helps!

I would make a BCD class. Then BCD.ToByteArray() would give you the current representation of the BCD in Byte[] format, and BCD.ToString() would give the string format. Internally store the BCD as one array element per BCD digit. If you design your own datastructure rather than try to make Byte[] do what it wasn't intended to do, you will be better off.

Okay I got it:

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        const string rawTrack = "6900460420006149231=13050010300100000";

        var byteList = new LinkedList<byte>();

        foreach (var c in rawTrack)
        {
            if(c.Equals('='))
            {
                byteList.AddLast(13);
                continue;
            }

            var bytes = Formatters.Bcd.GetBytes(new string(c, 1));  // for 9 gives 0x09
            byteList.AddLast(bytes[0]);
        }

        // Adjust Buffer if odd length
        if(rawTrack.Length % 2 != 0)
        {
            byteList.AddFirst(0);
        }

        var result = new byte[byteList.Count / 2];
        var buffer = new byte[byteList.Count];
        byteList.CopyTo(buffer, 0);

        var j = 0;
        for(var i = 0; i < buffer.Length - 1; i += 2, j++ )
        {
            result[j] = CombineLowNibble(buffer[i], buffer[i + 1]);
        }


        Console.WriteLine(BitConverter.ToString(result));
    }

    private static byte CombineLowNibble(byte b, byte b1)
    {
        return (byte) ((b << 4) | b1);
    }

Here is the result:

06-90-04-60-42-00-06-14-92-31-D1-30-50-01-03-00-10-00-00

EDIT: modified to not include the original length in the result.

Hope this helps. Not sure how you calculated the original length to have a value of 0x37, though. :)

Based on the stated desired result, you only need to shift the separator nybble into the first byte of the second array.

byte[] field1Bytes = { 0x06, 0x90, 0x04, 0x60, 0x42, 0x00, 0x06, 0x14, 0x92, 0x31 } ;
byte[] field2Bytes = { 0x01, 0x30, 0x50, 0x01, 0x03, 0x00, 0x10, 0x00, 0x00 } ;
byte separator = 13; // D  0x0D 

byte[] result = new byte[field1Bytes.Length + field2Bytes.Length];


Array.Copy(field1Bytes, 0, result, 0, field1Bytes.Length);
Array.Copy(field2Bytes, 0, result, field1Bytes.Length, field2Bytes.Length);

// shift the separator into the first byte of the second array in the result
result[field1Bytes.Length] |= (byte)(separator << 4);

This produces:

0x06 0x90 0x04 0x60 0x42 0x00 0x06 0x14 0x92 0x31 0xd1 0x30 0x50 0x01 0x03 0x00 0x10 0x00 0x00

... which matches the stated desired result.