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can i use this same as with byte to other types values / objects?

As my goal is to out perform the List<T>
i am testing arrays and found few starting points to get on testing
i have tested this before trying to capture bitmaps off screen,
and tests proved the usage is suffice.
my question is what data types could use this Copy() code except for byte[]
say i want a data storage unit to take the advantage of unmanaged / unsafe
public unsafe struct NusT
{
public unsafe int vi;
public unsafe bool vb;
}
instead of populating a list
i initialise the struct as follows : 1)
NusT n;
n.vi= 90;
n.vb=true
i have tested this after testing the folowing: 2)
NusT n = new NusT(){vi=90, vb=true};
this test was after testing :3)
NusT n = new NusT("90", true);
i think both last had same results but the first one is blazing fast, as i do not create an object so
NusT n-> instructions- 1
n.vi=90 -> instructions- 1
n.vb=true -> instructions- 1
now i minimized what i could and this started at the begining with a class:
whitch was even worse than 2 & 3 above as it also uses properties
class bigAndSlow
{
public int a { get; private set;}
public bool b { get; private set;}
public string c { get; private set;}
public bigAndSlow(int .. ,boo .. , string.. )
{
initialise ...
}
}
so now when the final decision is
public unsafe struct NusT
{
public unsafe int vi;
public unsafe bool vb;
}
how can i implement this blazingly fast data unit to use Copy() on
NusT[] NustyArr;
static unsafe void Copy(byte[] src, int srcIndex,
byte[] dst, int dstIndex, int count)
{
if (src == null || srcIndex < 0 ||
dst == null || dstIndex < 0 || count < 0)
{
throw new ArgumentException();
}
int srcLen = src.Length;
int dstLen = dst.Length;
if (srcLen - srcIndex < count ||
dstLen - dstIndex < count)
{
throw new ArgumentException();
}
// The following fixed statement pins the location of
// the src and dst objects in memory so that they will
// not be moved by garbage collection.
fixed (byte* pSrc = src, pDst = dst)
{
byte* ps = pSrc;
byte* pd = pDst;
// Loop over the count in blocks of 4 bytes, copying an
// integer (4 bytes) at a time:
for (int n = 0; n < count / 4; n++)
{
*((int*)pd) = *((int*)ps);
pd += 4;
ps += 4;
}
// Complete the copy by moving any bytes that weren't
// moved in blocks of 4:
for (int n = 0; n < count % 4; n++)
{
*pd = *ps;
pd++;
ps++;
}
}
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
byte[] a = new byte[100];
byte[] b = new byte[100];
for (int i = 0; i < 100; ++i)
a[i] = (byte)i;
Copy(a, 0, b, 0, 100);
Console.WriteLine("The first 10 elements are:");
for (int i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
Console.Write(b[i] + " ");
Console.WriteLine("\n");
}

Yes, you can do this with any blittable type. The blittable types are primitive types (integer and float types, but not bool), one-dimensional arrays of blittable types and structures containing fields of blittable types only.
The structure NusT is not blittable because it contains bool field. Just change it to byte and you will get a blittable structure for which you can obtain a pointer.
Here is the code that works for any type:
static unsafe void UnsafeCopy<T>(T[] src, int srcIndex, T[] dst, int dstIndex, int count) where T : struct
{
if (src == null || srcIndex < 0 || dst == null || dstIndex < 0 || count < 0 || srcIndex + count > src.Length || dstIndex + count > dst.Length)
{
throw new ArgumentException();
}
int elem_size = Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(T));
GCHandle gch1 = GCHandle.Alloc(src, GCHandleType.Pinned);
GCHandle gch2 = GCHandle.Alloc(dst, GCHandleType.Pinned);
byte* ps = (byte*)gch1.AddrOfPinnedObject().ToPointer() + srcIndex * elem_size;
byte* pd = (byte*)gch2.AddrOfPinnedObject().ToPointer() + dstIndex * elem_size;
int len = count * elem_size;
try
{
// Loop over the count in blocks of 4 bytes, copying an
// integer (4 bytes) at a time:
for (int n = 0; n < len / 4; n++)
{
*((int*)pd) = *((int*)ps);
pd += 4;
ps += 4;
}
// Complete the copy by moving any bytes that weren't
// moved in blocks of 4:
for (int n = 0; n < len % 4; n++)
{
*pd = *ps;
pd++;
ps++;
}
}
finally
{
gch1.Free();
gch2.Free();
}
}
But I strongly advice you to use Array.Copy. It is already the most efficient way to copy arrays. See the benchmarks of copying array of 1M elements below:
byte[] Array.Copy: 57,491 us
byte[] FastCopy: 138,198 us
byte[] JustCopy: 792,399 us
byte[] UnsafeCopy: 138,575 us
byte[] MemCpy: 57,667 us
NusT[] Array.Copy: 1,197 ms
NusT[] JustCopy: 1,843 ms
NusT[] UnsafeCopy: 1,550 ms
NusT[] MemCpy: 1,208 ms
FastCopy is your copy function, UnsafeCopy is my templated function, JustCopy is a simple implementation for (int i = 0; i < src.Length; i++) dst[i] = src[i];. MemCpy is PInvoke call of msvcrt memcpy function.
The verdict is: using pointers in C# for performance improvement is a bad practice. JIT does not optimize the unsafe code. The best solution is to move performance critical code to native DLLs.

C# performance - Using unsafe pointers instead of IntPtr and Marshal

Question
I'm porting a C application into C#. The C app calls lots of functions from a 3rd-party DLL, so I wrote P/Invoke wrappers for these functions in C#. Some of these C functions allocate data which I have to use in the C# app, so I used IntPtr's, Marshal.PtrToStructure and Marshal.Copy to copy the native data (arrays and structures) into managed variables.
Unfortunately, the C# app proved to be much slower than the C version. A quick performance analysis showed that the above mentioned marshaling-based data copying is the bottleneck. I'm considering to speed up the C# code by rewriting it to use pointers instead. Since I don't have experience with unsafe code and pointers in C#, I need expert opinion regarding the following questions:
What are the drawbacks of using unsafe code and pointers instead of IntPtr and Marshaling? For example, is it more unsafe (pun intended) in any way? People seem to prefer marshaling, but I don't know why.
Is using pointers for P/Invoking really faster than using marshaling? How much speedup can be expected approximately? I couldn't find any benchmark tests for this.
Example code
To make the situation more clear, I hacked together a small example code (the real code is much more complex). I hope this example shows what I mean when I'm talking about "unsafe code and pointers" vs. "IntPtr and Marshal".
C library (DLL)
MyLib.h
#ifndef _MY_LIB_H_
#define _MY_LIB_H_
struct MyData
{
int length;
unsigned char* bytes;
};
__declspec(dllexport) void CreateMyData(struct MyData** myData, int length);
__declspec(dllexport) void DestroyMyData(struct MyData* myData);
#endif // _MY_LIB_H_
MyLib.c
#include <stdlib.h>
#include "MyLib.h"
void CreateMyData(struct MyData** myData, int length)
{
int i;
*myData = (struct MyData*)malloc(sizeof(struct MyData));
if (*myData != NULL)
{
(*myData)->length = length;
(*myData)->bytes = (unsigned char*)malloc(length * sizeof(char));
if ((*myData)->bytes != NULL)
for (i = 0; i < length; ++i)
(*myData)->bytes[i] = (unsigned char)(i % 256);
}
}
void DestroyMyData(struct MyData* myData)
{
if (myData != NULL)
{
if (myData->bytes != NULL)
free(myData->bytes);
free(myData);
}
}
C application
Main.c
#include <stdio.h>
#include "MyLib.h"
void main()
{
struct MyData* myData = NULL;
int length = 100 * 1024 * 1024;
printf("=== C++ test ===\n");
CreateMyData(&myData, length);
if (myData != NULL)
{
printf("Length: %d\n", myData->length);
if (myData->bytes != NULL)
printf("First: %d, last: %d\n", myData->bytes[0], myData->bytes[myData->length - 1]);
else
printf("myData->bytes is NULL");
}
else
printf("myData is NULL\n");
DestroyMyData(myData);
getchar();
}
C# application, which uses IntPtr and Marshal
Program.cs
using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
public static class Program
{
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
private struct MyData
{
public int Length;
public IntPtr Bytes;
}
[DllImport("MyLib.dll")]
private static extern void CreateMyData(out IntPtr myData, int length);
[DllImport("MyLib.dll")]
private static extern void DestroyMyData(IntPtr myData);
public static void Main()
{
Console.WriteLine("=== C# test, using IntPtr and Marshal ===");
int length = 100 * 1024 * 1024;
IntPtr myData1;
CreateMyData(out myData1, length);
if (myData1 != IntPtr.Zero)
{
MyData myData2 = (MyData)Marshal.PtrToStructure(myData1, typeof(MyData));
Console.WriteLine("Length: {0}", myData2.Length);
if (myData2.Bytes != IntPtr.Zero)
{
byte[] bytes = new byte[myData2.Length];
Marshal.Copy(myData2.Bytes, bytes, 0, myData2.Length);
Console.WriteLine("First: {0}, last: {1}", bytes[0], bytes[myData2.Length - 1]);
}
else
Console.WriteLine("myData.Bytes is IntPtr.Zero");
}
else
Console.WriteLine("myData is IntPtr.Zero");
DestroyMyData(myData1);
Console.ReadKey(true);
}
}
C# application, which uses unsafe code and pointers
Program.cs
using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
public static class Program
{
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
private unsafe struct MyData
{
public int Length;
public byte* Bytes;
}
[DllImport("MyLib.dll")]
private unsafe static extern void CreateMyData(out MyData* myData, int length);
[DllImport("MyLib.dll")]
private unsafe static extern void DestroyMyData(MyData* myData);
public unsafe static void Main()
{
Console.WriteLine("=== C# test, using unsafe code ===");
int length = 100 * 1024 * 1024;
MyData* myData;
CreateMyData(out myData, length);
if (myData != null)
{
Console.WriteLine("Length: {0}", myData->Length);
if (myData->Bytes != null)
Console.WriteLine("First: {0}, last: {1}", myData->Bytes[0], myData->Bytes[myData->Length - 1]);
else
Console.WriteLine("myData.Bytes is null");
}
else
Console.WriteLine("myData is null");
DestroyMyData(myData);
Console.ReadKey(true);
}
}

It's a little old thread, but I recently made excessive performance tests with marshaling in C#. I need to unmarshal lots of data from a serial port over many days. It was important to me to have no memory leaks (because the smallest leak will get significant after a couple of million calls) and I also made a lot of statistical performance (time used) tests with very big structs (>10kb) just for the sake of it (an no, you should never have a 10kb struct :-) )
I tested the following three unmarshalling strategies (I also tested the marshalling). In nearly all cases the first one (MarshalMatters) outperformed the other two.
Marshal.Copy was always slowest by far, the other two were mostly very close together in the race.
Using unsafe code can pose a significant security risk.
First:
public class MarshalMatters
{
public static T ReadUsingMarshalUnsafe<T>(byte[] data) where T : struct
{
unsafe
{
fixed (byte* p = &data[0])
{
return (T)Marshal.PtrToStructure(new IntPtr(p), typeof(T));
}
}
}
public unsafe static byte[] WriteUsingMarshalUnsafe<selectedT>(selectedT structure) where selectedT : struct
{
byte[] byteArray = new byte[Marshal.SizeOf(structure)];
fixed (byte* byteArrayPtr = byteArray)
{
Marshal.StructureToPtr(structure, (IntPtr)byteArrayPtr, true);
}
return byteArray;
}
}
Second:
public class Adam_Robinson
{
private static T BytesToStruct<T>(byte[] rawData) where T : struct
{
T result = default(T);
GCHandle handle = GCHandle.Alloc(rawData, GCHandleType.Pinned);
try
{
IntPtr rawDataPtr = handle.AddrOfPinnedObject();
result = (T)Marshal.PtrToStructure(rawDataPtr, typeof(T));
}
finally
{
handle.Free();
}
return result;
}
/// <summary>
/// no Copy. no unsafe. Gets a GCHandle to the memory via Alloc
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="selectedT"></typeparam>
/// <param name="structure"></param>
/// <returns></returns>
public static byte[] StructToBytes<T>(T structure) where T : struct
{
int size = Marshal.SizeOf(structure);
byte[] rawData = new byte[size];
GCHandle handle = GCHandle.Alloc(rawData, GCHandleType.Pinned);
try
{
IntPtr rawDataPtr = handle.AddrOfPinnedObject();
Marshal.StructureToPtr(structure, rawDataPtr, false);
}
finally
{
handle.Free();
}
return rawData;
}
}
Third:
/// <summary>
/// http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2623761/marshal-ptrtostructure-and-back-again-and-generic-solution-for-endianness-swap
/// </summary>
public class DanB
{
/// <summary>
/// uses Marshal.Copy! Not run in unsafe. Uses AllocHGlobal to get new memory and copies.
/// </summary>
public static byte[] GetBytes<T>(T structure) where T : struct
{
var size = Marshal.SizeOf(structure); //or Marshal.SizeOf<selectedT>(); in .net 4.5.1
byte[] rawData = new byte[size];
IntPtr ptr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(size);
Marshal.StructureToPtr(structure, ptr, true);
Marshal.Copy(ptr, rawData, 0, size);
Marshal.FreeHGlobal(ptr);
return rawData;
}
public static T FromBytes<T>(byte[] bytes) where T : struct
{
var structure = new T();
int size = Marshal.SizeOf(structure); //or Marshal.SizeOf<selectedT>(); in .net 4.5.1
IntPtr ptr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(size);
Marshal.Copy(bytes, 0, ptr, size);
structure = (T)Marshal.PtrToStructure(ptr, structure.GetType());
Marshal.FreeHGlobal(ptr);
return structure;
}
}

Considerations in Interoperability explains why and when Marshaling is required and at what cost. Quote:
Marshaling occurs when a caller and a callee cannot operate on the same instance of data.
repeated marshaling can negatively affect the performance of your application.
Therefore, answering your question if
... using pointers for P/Invoking really faster than using marshaling ...
first ask yourself a question if the managed code is able to operate on the unmanaged method return value instance. If the answer is yes then Marshaling and the associated performance cost is not required.
The approximate time saving would be O(n) function where n of the size of the marshalled instance.
In addition, not keeping both managed and unmanaged blocks of data in memory at the same time for the duration of the method (in "IntPtr and Marshal" example) eliminates additional overhead and the memory pressure.
What are the drawbacks of using unsafe code and pointers ...
The drawback is the risk associated with accessing the memory directly through pointers. There is nothing less safe to it than using pointers in C or C++. Use it if needed and makes sense. More details are here.
There is one "safety" concern with the presented examples: releasing of allocated unmanaged memory is not guaranteed after the managed code errors. The best practice is to
CreateMyData(out myData1, length);
if(myData1!=IntPtr.Zero) {
try {
// -> use myData1
...
// <-
}
finally {
DestroyMyData(myData1);
}
}

For anyone still reading,
Something I don't think I saw in any of the answers, - unsafe code does present something of a security risk. It's not a huge risk, it would be something quite challenging to exploit. However, if like me you work in a PCI compliant organization, unsafe code is disallowed by policy for this reason.
Managed code is normally very secure because the CLR takes care of memory location and allocation, preventing you from accessing or writing any memory you're not supposed to.
When you use the unsafe keyword and compile with '/unsafe' and use pointers, you bypass these checks and create the potential for someone to use your application to gain some level of unauthorized access to the machine it is running on. Using something like a buffer-overrun attack, your code could be tricked into writing instructions into an area of memory that might then be accessed by the program counter (i.e. code injection), or just crash the machine.
Many years ago, SQL server actually fell prey to malicious code delivered in a TDS packet that was far longer than it was supposed to be. The method reading the packet didn't check the length and continued to write the contents past the reserved address space. The extra length and content were carefully crafted such that it wrote an entire program into memory - at the address of the next method.
The attacker then had their own code being executed by the SQL server within a context that had the highest level of access. It didn't even need to break the encryption as the vulnerability was below this point in the transport layer stack.

Just wanted to add my experience to this old thread:
We used Marshaling in sound recording software - we received real time sound data from mixer into native buffers and marshaled it to byte[]. That was real performance killer. We were forced to move to unsafe structs as the only way to complete the task.
In case you don't have large native structs and don't mind that all data is filled twice - Marshaling is more elegant and much, much safer approach.

Two answers,
Unsafe code means it is not managed by the CLR. You need to take care of resources it uses.
You cannot scale the performance because there are so many factors effecting it. But definitely using pointers will be much faster.

Because you stated that your code calls to 3rd-party DLL, I think the unsafe code is more suited in you scenario. You ran into a particular situation of wapping variable-length array in a struct; I know, I know this kind of usage occurs all the time, but it's not always the case after all. You might want to have a look of some questions about this, for example:
How do I marshal a struct that contains a variable-sized array to C#?
If .. I say if .. you can modify the third party libraries a bit for this particular case, then you might consider the following usage:
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
public static class Program { /*
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
private struct MyData {
public int Length;
public byte[] Bytes;
} */
[DllImport("MyLib.dll")]
// __declspec(dllexport) void WINAPI CreateMyDataAlt(BYTE bytes[], int length);
private static extern void CreateMyDataAlt(byte[] myData, ref int length);
/*
[DllImport("MyLib.dll")]
private static extern void DestroyMyData(byte[] myData); */
public static void Main() {
Console.WriteLine("=== C# test, using IntPtr and Marshal ===");
int length = 100*1024*1024;
var myData1 = new byte[length];
CreateMyDataAlt(myData1, ref length);
if(0!=length) {
// MyData myData2 = (MyData)Marshal.PtrToStructure(myData1, typeof(MyData));
Console.WriteLine("Length: {0}", length);
/*
if(myData2.Bytes!=IntPtr.Zero) {
byte[] bytes = new byte[myData2.Length];
Marshal.Copy(myData2.Bytes, bytes, 0, myData2.Length); */
Console.WriteLine("First: {0}, last: {1}", myData1[0], myData1[length-1]); /*
}
else {
Console.WriteLine("myData.Bytes is IntPtr.Zero");
} */
}
else {
Console.WriteLine("myData is empty");
}
// DestroyMyData(myData1);
Console.ReadKey(true);
}
}
As you can see much of your original marshalling code is commented out, and declared a CreateMyDataAlt(byte[], ref int) for a coresponding modified external unmanaged function CreateMyDataAlt(BYTE [], int). Some of the data copy and pointer check turns to be unnecessary, that says, the code can be even simpler and probably runs faster.
So, what's so different with the modification? The byte array is now marshalled directly without warpping in a struct and passed to the unmanaged side. You don't allocate the memory within the unmanaged code, rather, just filling data to it(implementation details omitted); and after the call, the data needed is provided to the managed side. If you want to present that the data is not filled and should not be used, you can simply set length to zero to tell the managed side. Because the byte array is allocated within the managed side, it'll be collected sometime, you don't have to take care of that.

I had the same question today and I was looking for some concrete measurement values, but I couldn't find any. So I wrote my own tests.
The test is copying pixel data of a 10k x 10k RGB image. The image data is 300 MB (3*10^9 bytes). Some methods copy this data 10 times, others are faster and therefore copy it 100 times. The used copying methods include
array access via byte pointer
Marshal.Copy(): a) 1 * 300 MB, b) 1e9 * 3 bytes
Buffer.BlockCopy(): a) 1 * 300 MB, b) 1e9 * 3 bytes
Test environment:
CPU: Intel Core i7-3630QM # 2.40 GHz
OS: Win 7 Pro x64 SP1
Visual Studio 2015.3, code is C++/CLI, targeted .net version is 4.5.2, compiled for Debug.
Test results:
The CPU load is 100% for 1 core at all methods (equals 12.5% total CPU load).
Comparison of speed and execution time:
method speed exec.time
Marshal.Copy (1*300MB) 100 % 100%
Buffer.BlockCopy (1*300MB) 98 % 102%
Pointer 4.4 % 2280%
Buffer.BlockCopy (1e9*3B) 1.4 % 7120%
Marshal.Copy (1e9*3B) 0.95% 10600%
Execution times and calculated average throughput written as comments in the code below.
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
static void CopyIntoBitmap_Pointer (array<unsigned char>^ i_aui8ImageData,
BitmapData^ i_ptrBitmap,
int i_iBytesPerPixel)
{
char* scan0 = (char*)(i_ptrBitmap->Scan0.ToPointer ());
int ixCnt = 0;
for (int ixRow = 0; ixRow < i_ptrBitmap->Height; ixRow++)
{
for (int ixCol = 0; ixCol < i_ptrBitmap->Width; ixCol++)
{
char* pPixel = scan0 + ixRow * i_ptrBitmap->Stride + ixCol * 3;
pPixel[0] = i_aui8ImageData[ixCnt++];
pPixel[1] = i_aui8ImageData[ixCnt++];
pPixel[2] = i_aui8ImageData[ixCnt++];
}
}
}
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
static void CopyIntoBitmap_MarshallLarge (array<unsigned char>^ i_aui8ImageData,
BitmapData^ i_ptrBitmap)
{
IntPtr ptrScan0 = i_ptrBitmap->Scan0;
Marshal::Copy (i_aui8ImageData, 0, ptrScan0, i_aui8ImageData->Length);
}
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
static void CopyIntoBitmap_MarshalSmall (array<unsigned char>^ i_aui8ImageData,
BitmapData^ i_ptrBitmap,
int i_iBytesPerPixel)
{
int ixCnt = 0;
for (int ixRow = 0; ixRow < i_ptrBitmap->Height; ixRow++)
{
for (int ixCol = 0; ixCol < i_ptrBitmap->Width; ixCol++)
{
IntPtr ptrScan0 = IntPtr::Add (i_ptrBitmap->Scan0, i_iBytesPerPixel);
Marshal::Copy (i_aui8ImageData, ixCnt, ptrScan0, i_iBytesPerPixel);
ixCnt += i_iBytesPerPixel;
}
}
}
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
void main ()
{
int iWidth = 10000;
int iHeight = 10000;
int iBytesPerPixel = 3;
Bitmap^ oBitmap = gcnew Bitmap (iWidth, iHeight, PixelFormat::Format24bppRgb);
BitmapData^ oBitmapData = oBitmap->LockBits (Rectangle (0, 0, iWidth, iHeight), ImageLockMode::WriteOnly, oBitmap->PixelFormat);
array<unsigned char>^ aui8ImageData = gcnew array<unsigned char> (iWidth * iHeight * iBytesPerPixel);
int ixCnt = 0;
for (int ixRow = 0; ixRow < iHeight; ixRow++)
{
for (int ixCol = 0; ixCol < iWidth; ixCol++)
{
aui8ImageData[ixCnt++] = ixRow * 250 / iHeight;
aui8ImageData[ixCnt++] = ixCol * 250 / iWidth;
aui8ImageData[ixCnt++] = ixCol;
}
}
//========== Pointer ==========
// ~ 8.97 sec for 10k * 10k * 3 * 10 exec, ~ 334 MB/s
int iExec = 10;
DateTime dtStart = DateTime::Now;
for (int ixExec = 0; ixExec < iExec; ixExec++)
{
CopyIntoBitmap_Pointer (aui8ImageData, oBitmapData, iBytesPerPixel);
}
TimeSpan tsDuration = DateTime::Now - dtStart;
Console::WriteLine (tsDuration + " " + ((double)aui8ImageData->Length * iExec / tsDuration.TotalSeconds / 1e6));
//========== Marshal.Copy, 1 large block ==========
// 3.94 sec for 10k * 10k * 3 * 100 exec, ~ 7617 MB/s
iExec = 100;
dtStart = DateTime::Now;
for (int ixExec = 0; ixExec < iExec; ixExec++)
{
CopyIntoBitmap_MarshallLarge (aui8ImageData, oBitmapData);
}
tsDuration = DateTime::Now - dtStart;
Console::WriteLine (tsDuration + " " + ((double)aui8ImageData->Length * iExec / tsDuration.TotalSeconds / 1e6));
//========== Marshal.Copy, many small 3-byte blocks ==========
// 41.7 sec for 10k * 10k * 3 * 10 exec, ~ 72 MB/s
iExec = 10;
dtStart = DateTime::Now;
for (int ixExec = 0; ixExec < iExec; ixExec++)
{
CopyIntoBitmap_MarshalSmall (aui8ImageData, oBitmapData, iBytesPerPixel);
}
tsDuration = DateTime::Now - dtStart;
Console::WriteLine (tsDuration + " " + ((double)aui8ImageData->Length * iExec / tsDuration.TotalSeconds / 1e6));
//========== Buffer.BlockCopy, 1 large block ==========
// 4.02 sec for 10k * 10k * 3 * 100 exec, ~ 7467 MB/s
iExec = 100;
array<unsigned char>^ aui8Buffer = gcnew array<unsigned char> (aui8ImageData->Length);
dtStart = DateTime::Now;
for (int ixExec = 0; ixExec < iExec; ixExec++)
{
Buffer::BlockCopy (aui8ImageData, 0, aui8Buffer, 0, aui8ImageData->Length);
}
tsDuration = DateTime::Now - dtStart;
Console::WriteLine (tsDuration + " " + ((double)aui8ImageData->Length * iExec / tsDuration.TotalSeconds / 1e6));
//========== Buffer.BlockCopy, many small 3-byte blocks ==========
// 28.0 sec for 10k * 10k * 3 * 10 exec, ~ 107 MB/s
iExec = 10;
dtStart = DateTime::Now;
for (int ixExec = 0; ixExec < iExec; ixExec++)
{
int ixCnt = 0;
for (int ixRow = 0; ixRow < iHeight; ixRow++)
{
for (int ixCol = 0; ixCol < iWidth; ixCol++)
{
Buffer::BlockCopy (aui8ImageData, ixCnt, aui8Buffer, ixCnt, iBytesPerPixel);
ixCnt += iBytesPerPixel;
}
}
}
tsDuration = DateTime::Now - dtStart;
Console::WriteLine (tsDuration + " " + ((double)aui8ImageData->Length * iExec / tsDuration.TotalSeconds / 1e6));
oBitmap->UnlockBits (oBitmapData);
oBitmap->Save ("d:\\temp\\bitmap.bmp", ImageFormat::Bmp);
}
related information:
Why is memcpy() and memmove() faster than pointer increments?
Array.Copy vs Buffer.BlockCopy, Answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/33865267
https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/issues/2430 "Array.Copy & Buffer.BlockCopy x2 to x3 slower < 1kB"
https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/blob/master/src/vm/comutilnative.cpp, Line 718 at the time of writing: Buffer.BlockCopy() uses memmove

C# byte array to fixed int pointer

is it possible to somehow cast the type of a pointer created by the fixed() statement?
This is the situation:
I have an array of byte, which i would like to iterate through, however i would like the values to be treated as int, thus having an int* instead of a byte*.
Here's some exemplary code:
byte[] rawdata = new byte[1024];
fixed(int* ptr = rawdata) //this fails with an implicit cast error
{
for(int i = idx; i < rawdata.Length; i++)
{
//do some work here
}
}
Can this be done without having to do the cast inside the iteration?

byte[] rawdata = new byte[1024];
fixed(byte* bptr = rawdata)
{
int* ptr=(int*)bptr;
for(int i = idx; i < rawdata.Length; i++)
{
//do some work here
}
}

I believe you have to go via a byte*. For example:
using System;
class Test
{
unsafe static void Main()
{
byte[] rawData = new byte[1024];
rawData[0] = 1;
rawData[1] = 2;
fixed (byte* bytePtr = rawData)
{
int* intPtr = (int*) bytePtr;
Console.WriteLine(intPtr[0]); // Prints 513 on my box
}
}
}
Note that when iterating, you should use rawData.Length / 4, not rawData.Length if you're treating your byte array as a sequence of 32-bit values.

I found a - seemingly - more elegant and for some reason also faster way of doing this:
byte[] rawData = new byte[1024];
GCHandle rawDataHandle = GCHandle.Alloc(rawData, GCHandleType.Pinned);
int* iPtr = (int*)rawDataHandle.AddrOfPinnedObject().ToPointer();
int length = rawData.Length / sizeof (int);
for (int idx = 0; idx < length; idx++, iPtr++)
{
(*iPtr) = idx;
Console.WriteLine("Value of integer at pointer position: {0}", (*iPtr));
}
rawDataHandle.Free();
This way the only thing i need to do - apart from setting the correct iteration length - is increment the pointer. I compared the code with the one using the fixed statement, and this one is slightly faster.

What is the overhead of the C# 'fixed' statement on a managed unsafe struct containing fixed arrays?

I've been trying to determine what the true cost of using the fixed statement within C# for managed unsafe structs that contain fixed arrays. Please note I am not referring to unmanaged structs.
Specifically, is there a reason to avoid the pattern shown by 'MultipleFixed' class below? Is the cost of simply fixing the data non zero, near zero (== cost similar to setting & clearing a single flag when entering/exiting the fixed scope), or is it significant enough to avoid when possible?
Obviously, these classes are contrived to help explain the question. This is for a high usage data structure in an XNA game where the read/write performance of this data is critical, so if I need to fix the array and pass it around everywhere I'll do that, but if there is no difference at all I'd prefer to keep the fixed() local to the methods to help with keeping the function signatures slightly more portable to platforms that don't support unsafe code. (Yeah, it’s some extra grunt code, but whatever it takes...)
unsafe struct ByteArray
{
public fixed byte Data[1024];
}
class MultipleFixed
{
unsafe void SetValue(ref ByteArray bytes, int index, byte value)
{
fixed(byte* data = bytes.Data)
{
data[index] = value;
}
}
unsafe bool Validate(ref ByteArray bytes, int index, byte expectedValue)
{
fixed(byte* data = bytes.Data)
{
return data[index] == expectedValue;
}
}
void Test(ref ByteArray bytes)
{
SetValue(ref bytes, 0, 1);
Validate(ref bytes, 0, 1);
}
}
class SingleFixed
{
unsafe void SetValue(byte* data, int index, byte value)
{
data[index] = value;
}
unsafe bool Validate(byte* data, int index, byte expectedValue)
{
return data[index] == expectedValue;
}
unsafe void Test(ref ByteArray bytes)
{
fixed(byte* data = bytes.Data)
{
SetValue(data, 0, 1);
Validate(data, 0, 1);
}
}
}
Also, I looked for similar questions and the closest I found was this, but this question is different in that it is concerned only with pure managed code and the specific costs of using fixed in that context.

That was actually an interesting question that I had myself.
The results I managed to obtain suggest slightly different reasons for the performance loss than the 'fixed' statement itself.
You can see the tests I run and the results below, but there are following observations I draw from those:
the performance of using 'fixed' with pure pointers (x*), without IntPtr, is as good as in managed code; in Release Mode, it is even way better if fixed is not used too often - that's the most performant way of accessing multiple array values
in Debug Mode, using 'fixed' (inside a loop) has a big negative performance impact, but in Release Mode, it works almost as good as normal array access (method FixedAccess);
using 'ref' on a reference-type parameter value (float[]) was consistently more or equally performant (both modes)
Debug Mode has a significant performance drop vs Release Mode when using IntPtr arithmetic (IntPtrAccess), but for both modes the performance was worse than normal array access
if the used offset is not aligned to the array's values' offset, the performance is terrible, regardless of the mode (it actually takes the same amount of time to for both modes). That holds true for 'float', but it doesn't have any impact for 'int'
Running the tests multiple times, gives slightly different, but broadly consistent results. Probably I should have run many series of tests and taken the average times, but I had no time for that :)
The test class first:
class Test {
public static void NormalAccess (float[] array, int index) {
array[index] = array[index] + 2;
}
public static void NormalRefAccess (ref float[] array, int index) {
array[index] = array[index] + 2;
}
public static void IntPtrAccess (IntPtr arrayPtr, int index) {
unsafe {
var array = (float*) IntPtr.Add (arrayPtr, index << 2);
(*array) = (*array) + 2;
}
}
public static void IntPtrMisalignedAccess (IntPtr arrayPtr, int index) {
unsafe {
var array = (float*) IntPtr.Add (arrayPtr, index); // getting bits of a float
(*array) = (*array) + 2;
}
}
public static void FixedAccess (float[] array, int index) {
unsafe {
fixed (float* ptr = &array[index])
(*ptr) = (*ptr) + 2;
}
}
public unsafe static void PtrAccess (float* ptr) {
(*ptr) = (*ptr) + 2;
}
}
And the tests themselves:
static int runs = 1000*1000*100;
public static void Print (string name, Stopwatch sw) {
Console.WriteLine ("{0}, items/sec = {1:N} \t {2}", sw.Elapsed, (runs / sw.ElapsedMilliseconds) * 1000, name);
}
static void Main (string[] args) {
var buffer = new float[1024*1024*100];
var len = buffer.Length;
var sw = new Stopwatch();
for (int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
Test.FixedAccess (buffer, 55);
Test.NormalAccess (buffer, 66);
}
Console.WriteLine ("Starting {0:N0} items", runs);
sw.Restart ();
for (int i = 0; i < runs; i++)
Test.NormalAccess (buffer, i % len);
sw.Stop ();
Print ("Normal access", sw);
sw.Restart ();
for (int i = 0; i < runs; i++)
Test.NormalRefAccess (ref buffer, i % len);
sw.Stop ();
Print ("Normal Ref access", sw);
sw.Restart ();
unsafe {
fixed (float* ptr = &buffer[0])
for (int i = 0; i < runs; i++) {
Test.IntPtrAccess ((IntPtr) ptr, i % len);
}
}
sw.Stop ();
Print ("IntPtr access (fixed outside loop)", sw);
sw.Restart ();
unsafe {
fixed (float* ptr = &buffer[0])
for (int i = 0; i < runs; i++) {
Test.IntPtrMisalignedAccess ((IntPtr) ptr, i % len);
}
}
sw.Stop ();
Print ("IntPtr Misaligned access (fixed outside loop)", sw);
sw.Restart ();
for (int i = 0; i < runs; i++)
Test.FixedAccess (buffer, i % len);
sw.Stop ();
Print ("Fixed access (fixed inside loop)", sw);
sw.Restart ();
unsafe {
fixed (float* ptr = &buffer[0]) {
for (int i = 0; i < runs; i++) {
Test.PtrAccess (ptr + (i % len));
}
}
}
sw.Stop ();
Print ("float* access (fixed outside loop)", sw);
sw.Restart ();
unsafe {
for (int i = 0; i < runs; i++) {
fixed (float* ptr = &buffer[i % len]) {
Test.PtrAccess (ptr);
}
}
}
sw.Stop ();
Print ("float* access (fixed in loop)", sw);
And finally the results:
Debug mode
Starting 100,000,000 items
00:00:01.0373583, items/sec = 96,432,000.00 Normal access
00:00:00.8582307, items/sec = 116,550,000.00 Normal Ref access
00:00:01.8822085, items/sec = 53,134,000.00 IntPtr access (fixed outside loop)
00:00:10.5356369, items/sec = 9,492,000.00 IntPtr Misaligned access (fixed outside loop)
00:00:01.6860701, items/sec = 59,311,000.00 Fixed access (fixed inside loop)
00:00:00.7577868, items/sec = 132,100,000.00 float* access (fixed outside loop)
00:00:01.0387792, items/sec = 96,339,000.00 float* access (fixed in loop)
Release mode
Starting 100,000,000 items
00:00:00.7454832, items/sec = 134,228,000.00 Normal access
00:00:00.6619090, items/sec = 151,285,000.00 Normal Ref access
00:00:00.9859089, items/sec = 101,522,000.00 IntPtr access (fixed outside loop)
00:00:10.1289018, items/sec = 9,873,000.00 IntPtr Misaligned access (fixed outside loop)
00:00:00.7899355, items/sec = 126,742,000.00 Fixed access (fixed inside loop)
00:00:00.5718507, items/sec = 175,131,000.00 float* access (fixed outside loop)
00:00:00.6842333, items/sec = 146,198,000.00 float* access (fixed in loop)

Empirically, the overhead appears to be, in the best case, ~270% on 32 bit JIT and ~200% on 64 bit (and the overhead gets worse the more times you "call" fixed). So I'd try to minimise your fixed blocks if performance is really critical.
Sorry, I'm not familiar enough with fixed / unsafe code to know why that's the case
Details
I also added some TestMore methods which call your two test methods 10 times instead of 2
to give a more real world scenario of multiple methods being called on your fixed struct.
The code I used:
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var someData = new ByteArray();
int iterations = 1000000000;
var multiple = new MultipleFixed();
var single = new SingleFixed();
// Warmup.
for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++)
{
multiple.Test(ref someData);
single.Test(ref someData);
multiple.TestMore(ref someData);
single.TestMore(ref someData);
}
// Environment.
if (Debugger.IsAttached)
Console.WriteLine("Debugger is attached!!!!!!!!!! This run is invalid!");
Console.WriteLine("CLR Version: " + Environment.Version);
Console.WriteLine("Pointer size: {0} bytes", IntPtr.Size);
Console.WriteLine("Iterations: " + iterations);
Console.Write("Starting run for Single... ");
var sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
for (int i = 0; i < iterations; i++)
{
single.Test(ref someData);
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("Completed in {0:N3}ms - {1:N2}/sec", sw.Elapsed.TotalMilliseconds, iterations / sw.Elapsed.TotalSeconds);
Console.Write("Starting run for More Single... ");
sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
for (int i = 0; i < iterations; i++)
{
single.Test(ref someData);
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("Completed in {0:N3}ms - {1:N2}/sec", sw.Elapsed.TotalMilliseconds, iterations / sw.Elapsed.TotalSeconds);
Console.Write("Starting run for Multiple... ");
sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
for (int i = 0; i < iterations; i++)
{
multiple.Test(ref someData);
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("Completed in {0:N3}ms - {1:N2}/sec", sw.Elapsed.TotalMilliseconds, iterations / sw.Elapsed.TotalSeconds);
Console.Write("Starting run for More Multiple... ");
sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
for (int i = 0; i < iterations; i++)
{
multiple.TestMore(ref someData);
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("Completed in {0:N3}ms - {1:N2}/sec", sw.Elapsed.TotalMilliseconds, iterations / sw.Elapsed.TotalSeconds);
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
unsafe struct ByteArray
{
public fixed byte Data[1024];
}
class MultipleFixed
{
unsafe void SetValue(ref ByteArray bytes, int index, byte value)
{
fixed (byte* data = bytes.Data)
{
data[index] = value;
}
}
unsafe bool Validate(ref ByteArray bytes, int index, byte expectedValue)
{
fixed (byte* data = bytes.Data)
{
return data[index] == expectedValue;
}
}
public void Test(ref ByteArray bytes)
{
SetValue(ref bytes, 0, 1);
Validate(ref bytes, 0, 1);
}
public void TestMore(ref ByteArray bytes)
{
SetValue(ref bytes, 0, 1);
Validate(ref bytes, 0, 1);
SetValue(ref bytes, 0, 2);
Validate(ref bytes, 0, 2);
SetValue(ref bytes, 0, 3);
Validate(ref bytes, 0, 3);
SetValue(ref bytes, 0, 4);
Validate(ref bytes, 0, 4);
SetValue(ref bytes, 0, 5);
Validate(ref bytes, 0, 5);
}
}
class SingleFixed
{
unsafe void SetValue(byte* data, int index, byte value)
{
data[index] = value;
}
unsafe bool Validate(byte* data, int index, byte expectedValue)
{
return data[index] == expectedValue;
}
public unsafe void Test(ref ByteArray bytes)
{
fixed (byte* data = bytes.Data)
{
SetValue(data, 0, 1);
Validate(data, 0, 1);
}
}
public unsafe void TestMore(ref ByteArray bytes)
{
fixed (byte* data = bytes.Data)
{
SetValue(data, 0, 1);
Validate(data, 0, 1);
SetValue(data, 0, 2);
Validate(data, 0, 2);
SetValue(data, 0, 3);
Validate(data, 0, 3);
SetValue(data, 0, 4);
Validate(data, 0, 4);
SetValue(data, 0, 5);
Validate(data, 0, 5);
}
}
}
And the results in .NET 4.0, 32 bit JIT:
CLR Version: 4.0.30319.239
Pointer size: 4 bytes
Iterations: 1000000000
Starting run for Single... Completed in 2,092.350ms - 477,931,580.94/sec
Starting run for More Single... Completed in 2,236.767ms - 447,073,934.63/sec
Starting run for Multiple... Completed in 5,775.922ms - 173,132,528.92/sec
Starting run for More Multiple... Completed in 26,637.862ms - 37,540,550.36/sec
And in .NET 4.0, 64 bit JIT:
CLR Version: 4.0.30319.239
Pointer size: 8 bytes
Iterations: 1000000000
Starting run for Single... Completed in 2,907.946ms - 343,885,316.72/sec
Starting run for More Single... Completed in 2,904.903ms - 344,245,585.63/sec
Starting run for Multiple... Completed in 5,754.893ms - 173,765,185.93/sec
Starting run for More Multiple... Completed in 18,679.593ms - 53,534,358.13/sec

What is the fastest way to convert a float[] to a byte[]?

I would like to get a byte[] from a float[] as quickly as possible, without looping through the whole array (via a cast, probably). Unsafe code is fine. Thanks!
I am looking for a byte array 4 time longer than the float array (the dimension of the byte array will be 4 times that of the float array, since each float is composed of 4 bytes). I'll pass this to a BinaryWriter.
EDIT:
To those critics screaming "premature optimization":
I have benchmarked this using ANTS profiler before I optimized. There was a significant speed increase because the file has a write-through cache and the float array is exactly sized to match the sector size on the disk. The binary writer wraps a file handle created with pinvoke'd win32 API. The optimization occurs since this lessens the number of function calls.
And, with regard to memory, this application creates massive caches which use plenty of memory. I can allocate the byte buffer once and re-use it many times--the double memory usage in this particular instance amounts to a roundoff error in the overall memory consumption of the app.
So I guess the lesson here is not to make premature assumptions ;)

There is a dirty fast (not unsafe code) way of doing this:
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Explicit)]
struct BytetoDoubleConverter
{
[FieldOffset(0)]
public Byte[] Bytes;
[FieldOffset(0)]
public Double[] Doubles;
}
//...
static Double Sum(byte[] data)
{
BytetoDoubleConverter convert = new BytetoDoubleConverter { Bytes = data };
Double result = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < convert.Doubles.Length / sizeof(Double); i++)
{
result += convert.Doubles[i];
}
return result;
}
This will work, but I'm not sure of the support on Mono or newer versions of the CLR. The only strange thing is that the array.Length is the bytes length. This can be explained because it looks at the array length stored with the array, and because this array was a byte array that length will still be in byte length. The indexer does think about the Double being eight bytes large so no calculation is necessary there.
I've looked for it some more, and it's actually described on MSDN, How to: Create a C/C++ Union by Using Attributes (C# and Visual Basic), so chances are this will be supported in future versions. I am not sure about Mono though.

Premature optimization is the root of all evil! #Vlad's suggestion to iterate over each float is a much more reasonable answer than switching to a byte[]. Take the following table of runtimes for increasing numbers of elements (average of 50 runs):
Elements BinaryWriter(float) BinaryWriter(byte[])
-----------------------------------------------------------
10 8.72ms 8.76ms
100 8.94ms 8.82ms
1000 10.32ms 9.06ms
10000 32.56ms 10.34ms
100000 213.28ms 739.90ms
1000000 1955.92ms 10668.56ms
There is little difference between the two for small numbers of elements. Once you get into the huge number of elements range, the time spent copying from the float[] to the byte[] far outweighs the benefits.
So go with what is simple:
float[] data = new float[...];
foreach(float value in data)
{
writer.Write(value);
}

There is a way which avoids memory copying and iteration.
You can use a really ugly hack to temporary change your array to another type using (unsafe) memory manipulation.
I tested this hack in both 32 & 64 bit OS, so it should be portable.
The source + sample usage is maintained at https://gist.github.com/1050703 , but for your convenience I'll paste it here as well:
public static unsafe class FastArraySerializer
{
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Explicit)]
private struct Union
{
[FieldOffset(0)] public byte[] bytes;
[FieldOffset(0)] public float[] floats;
}
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, Pack = 1)]
private struct ArrayHeader
{
public UIntPtr type;
public UIntPtr length;
}
private static readonly UIntPtr BYTE_ARRAY_TYPE;
private static readonly UIntPtr FLOAT_ARRAY_TYPE;
static FastArraySerializer()
{
fixed (void* pBytes = new byte[1])
fixed (void* pFloats = new float[1])
{
BYTE_ARRAY_TYPE = getHeader(pBytes)->type;
FLOAT_ARRAY_TYPE = getHeader(pFloats)->type;
}
}
public static void AsByteArray(this float[] floats, Action<byte[]> action)
{
if (floats.handleNullOrEmptyArray(action))
return;
var union = new Union {floats = floats};
union.floats.toByteArray();
try
{
action(union.bytes);
}
finally
{
union.bytes.toFloatArray();
}
}
public static void AsFloatArray(this byte[] bytes, Action<float[]> action)
{
if (bytes.handleNullOrEmptyArray(action))
return;
var union = new Union {bytes = bytes};
union.bytes.toFloatArray();
try
{
action(union.floats);
}
finally
{
union.floats.toByteArray();
}
}
public static bool handleNullOrEmptyArray<TSrc,TDst>(this TSrc[] array, Action<TDst[]> action)
{
if (array == null)
{
action(null);
return true;
}
if (array.Length == 0)
{
action(new TDst[0]);
return true;
}
return false;
}
private static ArrayHeader* getHeader(void* pBytes)
{
return (ArrayHeader*)pBytes - 1;
}
private static void toFloatArray(this byte[] bytes)
{
fixed (void* pArray = bytes)
{
var pHeader = getHeader(pArray);
pHeader->type = FLOAT_ARRAY_TYPE;
pHeader->length = (UIntPtr)(bytes.Length / sizeof(float));
}
}
private static void toByteArray(this float[] floats)
{
fixed(void* pArray = floats)
{
var pHeader = getHeader(pArray);
pHeader->type = BYTE_ARRAY_TYPE;
pHeader->length = (UIntPtr)(floats.Length * sizeof(float));
}
}
}
And the usage is:
var floats = new float[] {0, 1, 0, 1};
floats.AsByteArray(bytes =>
{
foreach (var b in bytes)
{
Console.WriteLine(b);
}
});

If you do not want any conversion to happen, I would suggest Buffer.BlockCopy().
public static void BlockCopy(
Array src,
int srcOffset,
Array dst,
int dstOffset,
int count
)
For example:
float[] floatArray = new float[1000];
byte[] byteArray = new byte[floatArray.Length * 4];
Buffer.BlockCopy(floatArray, 0, byteArray, 0, byteArray.Length);

You're better-off letting the BinaryWriter do this for you. There's going to be iteration over your entire set of data regardless of which method you use, so there's no point in playing with bytes.

Although you can obtain a byte* pointer using unsafe and fixed, you cannot convert the byte* to byte[] in order for the writer to accept it as a parameter without performing data copy. Which you do not want to do as it will double your memory footprint and add an extra iteration over the inevitable iteration that needs to be performed in order to output the data to disk.
Instead, you are still better off iterating over the array of floats and writing each float to the writer individually, using the Write(double) method. It will still be fast because of buffering inside the writer. See sixlettervariables's numbers.

Using the new Span<> in .Net Core 2.1 or later...
byte[] byteArray2 = MemoryMarshal.Cast<float, byte>(floatArray).ToArray();
Or, if Span can be used instead, then a direct reinterpret cast can be done: (very fast - zero copying)
Span<byte> byteArray3 = MemoryMarshal.Cast<float, byte>(floatArray);
// with span we can get a byte, set a byte, iterate, and more.
byte someByte = byteSpan[2];
byteSpan[2] = 33;
I did some crude benchmarks. The time taken for each is in the comments. [release/no debugger/x64]
float[] floatArray = new float[100];
for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) floatArray[i] = i * 7.7777f;
Stopwatch start = Stopwatch.StartNew();
for (int j = 0; j < 100; j++)
{
start.Restart();
for (int k = 0; k < 1000; k++)
{
Span<byte> byteSpan = MemoryMarshal.Cast<float, byte>(floatArray);
}
long timeTaken1 = start.ElapsedTicks; ////// 0 ticks //////
start.Restart();
for (int k = 0; k < 1000; k++)
{
byte[] byteArray2 = MemoryMarshal.Cast<float, byte>(floatArray).ToArray();
}
long timeTaken2 = start.ElapsedTicks; ////// 26 ticks //////
start.Restart();
for (int k = 0; k < 1000; k++)
{
byte[] byteArray = new byte[sizeof(float) * floatArray.Length];
for (int i = 0; i < floatArray.Length; i++)
BitConverter.GetBytes(floatArray[i]).CopyTo(byteArray, i * sizeof(float));
}
long timeTaken3 = start.ElapsedTicks; ////// 1310 ticks //////
start.Restart();
for (int k = 0; k < 1000; k++)
{
byte[] byteArray = new byte[sizeof(float) * floatArray.Length];
Buffer.BlockCopy(floatArray, 0, byteArray, 0, byteArray.Length);
}
long timeTaken4 = start.ElapsedTicks; ////// 33 ticks //////
start.Restart();
for (int k = 0; k < 1000; k++)
{
byte[] byteArray = new byte[sizeof(float) * floatArray.Length];
MemoryStream memStream = new MemoryStream();
BinaryWriter writer = new BinaryWriter(memStream);
foreach (float value in floatArray)
writer.Write(value);
writer.Close();
}
long timeTaken5 = start.ElapsedTicks; ////// 1080 ticks //////
Console.WriteLine($"{timeTaken1/10,6} {timeTaken2 / 10,6} {timeTaken3 / 10,6} {timeTaken4 / 10,6} {timeTaken5 / 10,6} ");
}

We have a class called LudicrousSpeedSerialization and it contains the following unsafe method:
static public byte[] ConvertFloatsToBytes(float[] data)
{
int n = data.Length;
byte[] ret = new byte[n * sizeof(float)];
if (n == 0) return ret;
unsafe
{
fixed (byte* pByteArray = &ret[0])
{
float* pFloatArray = (float*)pByteArray;
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
{
pFloatArray[i] = data[i];
}
}
}
return ret;
}

Although it basically does do a for loop behind the scenes, it does do the job in one line
byte[] byteArray = floatArray.Select(
f=>System.BitConverter.GetBytes(f)).Aggregate(
(bytes, f) => {List<byte> temp = bytes.ToList(); temp.AddRange(f); return temp.ToArray(); });