How can I read a specific byte in a byte array in VB.NET?

Question

I have a binary file being loaded into a Byte array using Dim settingsBinary As Byte() = My.Computer.FileSystem.ReadAllBytes(settingsFile) where settingsFile is the path to my binary file.

Let's say that my binary file has got three bytes and I want to read the first byte as a Boolean (00 = False, 01 = True). How can I get those bytes? I have tried to use this question's answer to read those three bytes, but I can't wrap my head around it.

Just to clarify, I need to get the three bytes separately: Get the first byte, then set CheckBox1.Checked to the first byte, and so on with the other bytes.

Heinzi · Accepted Answer · 2022-04-17 10:23:43Z

1

A byte array works just like any other array: You can use an indexer to access a specific element.

Dim firstByte As Byte = settingsBinary(0)
Dim secondByte As Byte = settingsBinary(1)
Dim thirdByte As Byte = settingsBinary(2)

And then you can convert the byte into a boolean:

Dim firstBoolean As Boolean
Select Case firstByte
    Case 0
        firstBoolean = False
    Case 1
        firstBoolean = True
    Case Else
        Throw New Exception("Invalid first byte in settings file: " & firstByte)
End Select

(Generalizing the conversion logic into a method that can be used for all three bytes is left as an exercise to the reader.)

edited Apr 17, 2022 at 10:23

answered Apr 17, 2022 at 9:38

Heinzi

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1 Comment

Aarón García Egea Over a year ago

Thank you! It worked flawlessly. The only thing I had to change was Case 1 to Case 255 because the value was being stored as binary (True, False = 255, 0)

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