BinaryReader in c# reads '\0' between all characters of a string

Question

I am trying to write and read a binary file using c# BinaryWriter and BinaryReader classes. When I am storing a string in file, it is storing it properly, but when I am trying to read it is returning a string which has '\0' character on every alternate place within the string.

Here is the code:

 public void writeBinary(BinaryWriter bw)
 {
     bw.Write("Hello");
 }

 public void readBinary(BinaryReader br)
 {
     BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader(fs);
     String s;
     s = br.ReadString();
  }

Here s is getting value as = "H\0e\0l\0l\0o\0".

The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!) — GSerg
– GSerg, Commented Feb 16, 2014 at 1:46
You need to account for the character encoding, as @CSerg indicated. All strings in .NET use UTF8 encoding (2 bytes per character), which supports many scripts (Roman, Japanese, Hebrew, etc). — Wagner DosAnjos
– Wagner DosAnjos, Commented Feb 16, 2014 at 2:00

Guffa · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-16 01:55:16Z

5

You are using different encodings when reading and writing the file.

You are using UTF-16 when writing the file, so each character ends up as a 16 bit character code, i.e. two bytes.

You are using UTF-8 or some of the 8-bit encodings when reading the file, so each byte will end up as one character.

Pick one encoding and use for both reading and writing the file.

answered Feb 16, 2014 at 1:55

Guffa

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