Read stream from XmlReader, base64 decode it and write result to file - c#

Basically, I want to extract the stream from the XmlReader and directly base64 decode it to a file.
The structure of the XML file can be seen here. To get the value I have to use ReadInnerXml(). Is it possible to use ReadValueChunk instead?
Here is my current code:
using (XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create("/your/path/47311.xml"))
{
while(reader.Read())
{
if (reader.IsStartElement () && reader.NodeType == XmlNodeType.Element) {
switch (reader.Name) {
case "ttOutputRow":
reader.ReadToDescendant ("cKey");
switch (reader.ReadInnerXml ()) {
case "findMe":
reader.ReadToNextSibling ("cValue");
// here begins the interesting part
char[] buffer = new char[4096];
int charRead;
using (var destStream = File.OpenWrite ("/your/path/47311.jpg")) {
while ((charRead = reader.ReadValueChunk (buffer, 0, 4096)) != 0) {
byte[] decodedStream = System.Convert.FromBase64String (new string (buffer));
await destStream.WriteAsync(decodedStream, 0, decodedStream.Length);
Console.WriteLine ("in");
}
}
break;
default:
break;
}
break;
default:
break;
}
}
}
}
Currently, he doesn't read the value in.
Can't I use ReadValueChunk for this? How can I directly use the stream from the XmlReader without sacrificing too much memory?
Edit:
According to dbc I modified my code. This is what I currently use:
using (XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create("test.xml"))
{
while(reader.Read())
{
if (reader.IsStartElement () && reader.NodeType == XmlNodeType.Element) {
switch (reader.Name) {
case "ttOutputRow":
reader.ReadToDescendant ("cKey");
switch (reader.ReadInnerXml ()) {
case "findMe":
reader.ReadToNextSibling ("cValue");
byte[] buffer = new byte[40960];
int readBytes = 0;
using (FileStream outputFile = File.OpenWrite ("test.jpg"))
using (BinaryWriter bw = new BinaryWriter(outputFile))
{
while ((readBytes = reader.ReadElementContentAsBase64(buffer, 0, 40960)) > 0) {
bw.Write (buffer, 0, readBytes);
Console.WriteLine ("in");
}
}
break;
default:
break;
}
break;
default:
break;
}
}
}
}
Here you can find a test file. The real file is a little bit bigger and therefore takes much more time.
The above code doesn't work as expected. It is very slow and the extracted image is mostly black (destroyed).

In order to give a definitive answer to your question I would need to see the XML you are trying to read. However, two points:
According to the documentation for Convert.FromBase64String:
The FromBase64String method is designed to process a single string that contains all the data to be decoded. To decode base-64 character data from a stream, use the System.Security.Cryptography.FromBase64Transform class.
Thus your problem may be with decoding the content in chunks rather than with reading it in chunks.
You can use XmlReader.ReadElementContentAsBase64 or XmlReader.ReadElementContentAsBase64Async for exactly this purpose. From the docs:
This method reads the element content, decodes it using Base64 encoding, and returns the decoded binary bytes (for example, an inline Base64-encoded GIF image) into the buffer.
In fact, the example in the documentation demonstrates how to extract a base64-encoded image from an XML file and write it to a binary file in chunks.

Related

C# - Read bytes from file from a specific string

I'm trying to parse a crg-file in C#. The file is mixed with plain text and binary data. The first section of the file contains plain text while the rest of the file is binary (lots of floats), here's an example:
$
$ROAD_CRG
reference_line_start_u = 100
reference_line_end_u = 120
$
$KD_DEFINITION
#:KRBI
U:reference line u,m,730.000,0.010
D:reference line phi,rad
D:long section 1,m
D:long section 2,m
D:long section 3,m
...
$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
�#z����RA����\�l
...
I know I can read bytes starting at a specific offset but how do I find out which byte to start from? The last row before the binary section will always contain at least four dollar signs "$$$$". Here's what I've got so far:
using var fs = new FileStream(#"crg_sample.crg", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
var startByte = ??; // How to find out where to start?
using (BinaryReader reader = new BinaryReader(fs))
{
reader.BaseStream.Seek(startByte, SeekOrigin.Begin);
var f = reader.ReadSingle();
Debug.WriteLine(f);
}
When you have a mixture of text data and binary data, you need to treat everything as binary. This means you should be using raw Stream access, or something similar, and using binary APIs to look through the text data (often looking for cr/lf/crlf at bytes as sentinels, although it sounds like in your case you could just look for the $$$$ using binary APIs, then decode the entire block before, and scan forwards). When you think you have an entire line, then you can use Encoding to parse each line - the most convenient API being encoding.GetString(). When you've finished looking through the text data as binary, then you can continue parsing the binary data, again using the binary API. I would usually recommend against BinaryReader here too, because frankly it doesn't gain you much over more direct API. The other problem you might want to think about is CPU endianness, but assuming that isn't a problem: BitConverter.ToSingle() may be your friend.
If the data is modest in size, you may find it easiest to use byte[] for the data; either via File.ReadAllBytes, or by renting an oversized byte[] from the array-pool, and loading it from a FileStream. The Stream API is awkward for this kind of scenario, because once you've looked at data: it has gone - so you need to maintain your own back-buffers. The pipelines API is ideal for this, when dealing with large data, but is an advanced topic.
UPDATE: This code may not work as expected. Please review the valuable information in the comments.
using (var fs = new FileStream(#"crg_sample.crg", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
{
using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(fs, Encoding.ASCII, true, 1, true))
{
var line = sr.ReadLine();
while (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(line) && !line.Contains("$$$$"))
{
line = sr.ReadLine();
}
}
using (BinaryReader reader = new BinaryReader(fs))
{
// TODO: Start reading the binary data
}
}
Solution
I know this is far from the most optimized solution but in my case it did the trick and since the plain text section of the file was known to be fairly small this didn't cause any noticable performance issues. Here's the code:
using var fileStream = new FileStream(#"crg_sample.crg", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
using var reader = new BinaryReader(fileStream);
var newLine = '\n';
var markerString = "$$$$";
var currentString = "";
var foundMarker = false;
var foundNewLine = false;
while (!foundNewLine)
{
var c = reader.ReadChar();
if (!foundMarker)
{
currentString += c;
if (currentString.Length > markerString.Length)
currentString = currentString.Substring(1);
if (currentString == markerString)
foundMarker = true;
}
else
{
if (c == newLine)
foundNewLine = true;
}
}
if (foundNewLine)
{
// Read binary
}
Note: If you're dealing with larger or more complex files you should probably take a look at Mark Gravell's answer and the comment sections.

C#: how to read a line from a stream and then start reading it from beginning?

I need to read the first line from a stream to determine file's encoding, and then recreate the stream with that Encoding
The following code does not work correctly:
var r = response.GetResponseStream();
var sr = new StreamReader(r);
string firstLine = sr.ReadLine();
string encoding = GetEncodingFromFirstLine(firstLine);
string text = new StreamReader(r, Encoding.GetEncoding(encoding)).ReadToEnd();
The text variable doesn't contain the whole text. For some reason the first line and several lines after it are skipped.
I tried everything: closing the StreamReader, resetting it, calling a separate GetResponseStream... but nothing worked.
I can't get the response stream again as I'm getting this file from the internet, and redownloading it again would be bad performance wise.
Update
Here's what GetEncodingFromFirstLine() looks like:
public static string GetEncodingFromFirstLine(string line)
{
int encodingIndex = line.IndexOf("encoding=");
if (encodingIndex == -1)
{
return "utf-8";
}
return line.Substring(encodingIndex + "encoding=".Length).Replace("\"", "").Replace("'", "").Replace("?", "").Replace(">", "");
}
...
// true
Assert.AreEqual("windows-1251", GetEncodingFromFirstLine(#"<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""windows-1251""?>"));
** Update 2 **
I'm working with XML files, and the text variable is parsed as XML:
var feedItems = XElement.Parse(text);
Well you're asking it to detect the encoding... and that requires it to read data. That's reading it from the underlying stream, and you're then creating another StreamReader around the same stream.
I suggest you:
Get the response stream
Retrieve all the data into a byte array (or MemoryStream)
Detect the encoding (which should be performed on bytes, not text - currently you're already assuming UTF-8 by creating a StreamReader)
Create a MemoryStream around the byte array, and a StreamReader around that
It's not clear what your GetEncodingFromFirstLine method does... or what this file really is. More information may make it easier to help you.
EDIT: If this is to load some XML, don't reinvent the wheel. Just give the stream to one of the existing XML-parsing classes, which will perform the appropriate detection for you.
You need to change the current position in the stream to the beginning.
r.Position = 0;
string text = new StreamReader(r, Encoding.GetEncoding(encoding)).ReadToEnd();
I found the answer to my question here:
How can I read an Http response stream twice in C#?
Stream responseStream = CopyAndClose(resp.GetResponseStream());
// Do something with the stream
responseStream.Position = 0;
// Do something with the stream again
private static Stream CopyAndClose(Stream inputStream)
{
const int readSize = 256;
byte[] buffer = new byte[readSize];
MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
int count = inputStream.Read(buffer, 0, readSize);
while (count > 0)
{
ms.Write(buffer, 0, count);
count = inputStream.Read(buffer, 0, readSize);
}
ms.Position = 0;
inputStream.Close();
return ms;
}

C# - Check if File is Text Based

How can I test whether a file that I'm opening in C# using FileStream is a "text type" file? I would like my program to open any file that is text based, for example, .txt, .html, etc.
But not open such things as .doc or .pdf or .exe, etc.
In general: there is no way to tell.
A text file stored in UTF-16 will likely look like binary if you open it with an 8-bit encoding. Equally someone could save a text file as a .doc (it is a document).
While you could open the file and look at some of the content all such heuristics will sometimes fail (eg. notepad tries to do this, by careful selection of a few characters notepad will guess wrong and display completely different content).
If you have a specific scenario, rather than being able to open and process anything, you should be able to do much better.
I guess you could just check through the first 1000 (arbitrary number) characters and see if there are unprintable characters, or if they are all ascii in a certain range. If the latter, assume that it is text?
Whatever you do is going to be a guess.
As others have pointed out there is no absolute way to be sure. However, to determine if a file is binary (which can be said to be easier than determining if it is text) some implementations check for consecutive NUL characters. Git apparently just checks the first 8000 chars for a NUL and if it finds one treats the file as binary. See here for more details.
Here is a similar C# solution I wrote that looks for a given number of required consecutive NUL. If IsBinary returns false then it is very likely your file is text based.
public bool IsBinary(string filePath, int requiredConsecutiveNul = 1)
{
const int charsToCheck = 8000;
const char nulChar = '\0';
int nulCount = 0;
using (var streamReader = new StreamReader(filePath))
{
for (var i = 0; i < charsToCheck; i++)
{
if (streamReader.EndOfStream)
return false;
if ((char) streamReader.Read() == nulChar)
{
nulCount++;
if (nulCount >= requiredConsecutiveNul)
return true;
}
else
{
nulCount = 0;
}
}
}
return false;
}
To get the real type of a file, you must check its header, which won't be changed even the extension is modified. You can get the header list here, and use something like this in your code:
using(var stream = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
{
using(var reader = new BinaryReader(stream))
{
// read the first X bytes of the file
// In this example I want to check if the file is a BMP
// whose header is 424D in hex(2 bytes 6677)
string code = reader.ReadByte().ToString() + reader.ReadByte().ToString();
if (code.Equals("6677"))
{
//it's a BMP file
}
}
}
I have a below solution which works for me.This is general solution which check all types of Binary file.
/// <summary>
/// This method checks whether selected file is Binary file or not.
/// </summary>
public bool CheckForBinary()
{
Stream objStream = new FileStream("your file path", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
bool bFlag = true;
// Iterate through stream & check ASCII value of each byte.
for (int nPosition = 0; nPosition < objStream.Length; nPosition++)
{
int a = objStream.ReadByte();
if (!(a >= 0 && a <= 127))
{
break; // Binary File
}
else if (objStream.Position == (objStream.Length))
{
bFlag = false; // Text File
}
}
objStream.Dispose();
return bFlag;
}
public bool IsTextFile(string FilePath)
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(FilePath))
{
int Character;
while ((Character = reader.Read()) != -1)
{
if ((Character > 0 && Character < 8) || (Character > 13 && Character < 26))
{
return false;
}
}
}
return true;
}

Why does text from Assembly.GetManifestResourceStream() start with three junk characters?

I have a SQL file added to my VS.NET 2008 project as an embedded resource. Whenever I use the following code to read the file's content, the string returned always starts with three junk characters and then the text I expect. I assume this has something to do with the Encoding.Default I am using, but that is just a guess. Why does this text keep showing up? Should I just trim off the first three characters or is there a more informed approach?
public string GetUpdateRestoreSchemaScript()
{
var type = GetType();
var a = Assembly.GetAssembly(type);
var script = "UpdateRestoreSchema.sql";
var resourceName = String.Concat(type.Namespace, ".", script);
using(Stream stream = a.GetManifestResourceStream(resourceName))
{
byte[] buffer = new byte[stream.Length];
stream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
// UPDATE: Should be Encoding.UTF8
return Encoding.Default.GetString(buffer);
}
}
Update:
I now know that my code works as expected if I simply change the last line to return a UTF-8 encoded string. It will always be true for this embedded file, but will it always be true? Is there a way to test any buffer to determine its encoding?
Probably the file is in utf-8 encoding and Encoding.Default is ASCII. Why don't you use a specific encoding?
Edit to answer a comment:
In order to guess the file encoding you could look for BOM at the start of the stream. If it exists, it helps, if not then you can only guess or ask user.
if you try to load xml from assembly you actually need to inspect and skip the byte order mark bytes (drove me nuts):
....
byte[] data;
using (var stream = assembly.GetManifestResourceStream(filename))
{
var length = stream.Length;
data = new byte[length];
stream.Read(data, 0, (int) length);
}
if (!HasUtf8ByteOrderMark(data))
{
throw new InvalidOperationException("Expected UTF8 byte order mark EF BB BF");
}
return Encoding.UTF8.GetChars(data.Skip(3).ToArray());
And
static bool HasUtf8ByteOrderMark(byte[] data)
{
var bom = new byte[] { 0xEF, 0xBB, 0xBF };
return data[0] == bom[0] && data[1] == bom[1] && data[2] == bom[2];
}
More information here
I had the same problem in net.core
You can let streamreader do the encoding
using (var stream = = a.GetManifestResourceStream(resourceName))
using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream))
return reader.ReadToEnd();

Bytes consumed by StreamReader

Is there a way to know how many bytes of a stream have been used by StreamReader?
I have a project where we need to read a file that has a text header followed by the start of the binary data. My initial attempt to read this file was something like this:
private int _dataOffset;
void ReadHeader(string path)
{
using (FileStream stream = File.OpenRead(path))
{
StreamReader textReader = new StreamReader(stream);
do
{
string line = textReader.ReadLine();
handleHeaderLine(line);
} while(line != "DATA") // Yes, they used "DATA" to mark the end of the header
_dataOffset = stream.Position;
}
}
private byte[] ReadDataFrame(string path, int frameNum)
{
using (FileStream stream = File.OpenRead(path))
{
stream.Seek(_dataOffset + frameNum * cbFrame, SeekOrigin.Begin);
byte[] data = new byte[cbFrame];
stream.Read(data, 0, cbFrame);
return data;
}
return null;
}
The problem is that when I set _dataOffset to stream.Position, I get the position that the StreamReader has read to, not the end of the header. As soon as I thought about it this made sense, but I still need to be able to know where the end of the header is and I'm not sure if there's a way to do it and still take advantage of StreamReader.
You can find out how many bytes the StreamReader has actually returned (as opposed to read from the stream) in a number of ways, none of them too straightforward I'm afraid.
Get the result of textReader.CurrentEncoding.GetByteCount(totalLengthOfAllTextRead) and then seek to this position in the stream.
Use some reflection hackery to retrieve the value of the private variable of the StreamReader object that corresponds to the current byte position within the internal buffer (different from that with the stream - usually behind, but no more than equal to of course). Judging by .NET Reflector, the this variable seems to be named bytePos.
Don't bother using a StreamReader at all but instead implement your custom ReadLine function built on top of the Stream or BinaryReader even (BinaryReader is guaranteed never to read further ahead than what you request). This custom function must read from the stream char by char, so you'd actually have to use the low-level Decoder object (unless the encoding is ASCII/ANSI, in which case things are a bit simpler due to single-byte encoding).
Option 1 is going to be the least efficient I would imagine (since you're effectively re-encoding text you just decoded), and option 3 the hardest to implement, though perhaps the most elegant. I'd probably recommend against using the ugly reflection hack (option 2), even though it's looks tempting, being the most direct solution and only taking a couple of lines. (To be quite honest, the StreamReader class really ought to expose this variable via a public property, but alas it does not.) So in the end, it's up to you, but either method 1 or 3 should do the job nicely enough...
Hope that helps.
So the data is utf8 (the default encoding for StreamReader). This is a multibyte encoding, so IndexOf would be inadvisable. You could:
Encoding.UTF8.GetByteCount(string)
on your data so far, adding 1 or 2 bytes for the missing line ending.
If you're needing to count bytes, I'd go with the BinaryReader. You can take the results and cast them about as needed, but I find its idea of its current position to be more reliable (in that since it reads in binary, its immune to character-set problems).
So your last line contains 'DATA' + an unknown amount of data bytes. You could extract the position by using IndexOf() with your last read line. Then readjust the stream.Position.
But I am not sure if you should use ReadLine() at all in this case. Maybe it would be better to read byte by byte until you reach the 'DATA' mark.
The line breaks are easily identifiable without needing to decode the stream first (except for some encodings rarely used for text files like EBCDIC, UTF-16, UTF-32), so you can just read each line as bytes and then decode the entire line:
using (FileStream stream = File.OpenRead(path)) {
List<byte> buffer = new List<byte>();
bool hasCr = false;
bool done = false;
while (!done) {
int b = stream.ReadByte();
if (b == -1) throw new IOException("End of file reached in header.");
if (b == 13) {
hasCr = true;
} else if (b == 10 && hasCr) {
string line = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(buffer.ToArray(), 0, buffer.Count);
if (line == "DATA") {
done = true;
} else {
HandleHeaderLine(line);
}
buffer.Clear();
hasCr = false;
} else {
if (hasCr) buffer.Add(13);
hasCr = false;
buffer.Add((byte)b);
}
}
_dataOffset = stream.Position;
}
Instead of closing the stream and open it again, you could of course just keep on reading the data.

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