Mapping Stream data to data structures in C#

"Most people use .NET serialization (there is faster binary and slower XML formatter, they both depend on reflection and are version tolerant to certain degree)

However, if you want the fastest (unsafe) way - why not:

Writing:

YourStruct o = new YourStruct();
byte[] buffer = new byte[Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(YourStruct))];
GCHandle handle = GCHandle.Alloc(buffer, GCHandleType.Pinned);
Marshal.StructureToPtr(o, handle.AddrOfPinnedObject(), false);
handle.Free();

Reading:

handle = GCHandle.Alloc(buffer, GCHandleType.Pinned);
o = (YourStruct)Marshal.PtrToStructure(handle.AddrOfPinnedObject(), typeof(YourStruct));
handle.Free();"

"In case lubos hasko's answer was not unsafe enough, there is also the really unsafe way, using
pointers in C#. Here's some tips and pitfalls I've run into:

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.IO;
using System.Diagnostics;

// Use LayoutKind.Sequential to prevent the CLR from reordering your fields.
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
unsafe struct MeshDesc
{
public byte NameLen;
// Here fixed means store the array by value, like in C,
// though C# exposes access to Name as a char*.
// fixed also requires 'unsafe' on the struct definition.
public fixed char Name[16];
// You can include other structs like in C as well.
public Matrix Transform;
public uint VertexCount;
// But not both, you can't store an array of structs.
//public fixed Vector Vertices[512];
}

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
unsafe struct Matrix
{
public fixed float M[16];
}

// This is how you do unions
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Explicit)]
unsafe struct Vector
{
[FieldOffset(0)]
public fixed float Items[16];
[FieldOffset(0)]
public float X;
[FieldOffset(4)]
public float Y;
[FieldOffset(8)]
public float Z;
}

class Program
{
unsafe static void Main(string[] args)
{
var mesh = new MeshDesc();
var buffer = new byte[Marshal.SizeOf(mesh)];

// Set where NameLen will be read from.
buffer[0] = 12;
// Use Buffer.BlockCopy to raw copy data across arrays of primitives.
// Note we copy to offset 2 here: char's have alignment of 2, so there is
// a padding byte after NameLen: just like in C.
Buffer.BlockCopy(""Hello!"".ToCharArray(), 0, buffer, 2, 12);

// Copy data to struct
Read(buffer, out mesh);

// Print the Name we wrote above:
var name = new char[mesh.NameLen];
// Use Marsal.Copy to copy between arrays and pointers to arrays.
unsafe { Marshal.Copy((IntPtr)mesh.Name, name, 0, mesh.NameLen); }
// Note you can also use the String.String(char*) overloads
Console.WriteLine(""Name: "" + new string(name));

// If Erik Myers likes it...
mesh.VertexCount = 4711;

// Copy data from struct:
// MeshDesc is a struct, and is on the stack, so it's
// memory is effectively pinned by the stack pointer.
// This means '&' is sufficient to get a pointer.
Write(&mesh, buffer);

// Watch for alignment again, and note you have endianess to worry about...
int vc = buffer[100] | (buffer[101] << 8) | (buffer[102] << 16) | (buffer[103] << 24);
Console.WriteLine(""VertexCount = "" + vc);
}

unsafe static void Write(MeshDesc* pMesh, byte[] buffer)
{
// But byte[] is on the heap, and therefore needs
// to be flagged as pinned so the GC won't try to move it
// from under you - this can be done most efficiently with
// 'fixed', but can also be done with GCHandleType.Pinned.
fixed (byte* pBuffer = buffer)
*(MeshDesc*)pBuffer = *pMesh;
}

unsafe static void Read(byte[] buffer, out MeshDesc mesh)
{
fixed (byte* pBuffer = buffer)
mesh = *(MeshDesc*)pBuffer;
}
}"

"if its .net on both sides:

think you should use binary serialization and send the byte[] result.

trusting your struct to be fully blittable can be trouble.

you will pay in some overhead (both cpu and network) but will be safe."

"If you need to populate each member variable by hand you can generalize it a bit as far as the primitives are concerned by using FormatterServices to retrieve in order the list of variable types associated with an object. I've had to do this in a project where I had a lot of different message types coming off the stream and I definitely didn't want to write the serializer/deserializer for each message.

Here's the code I used to generalize the deserialization from a byte[].

public virtual bool SetMessageBytes(byte[] message)
{
MemberInfo[] members = FormatterServices.GetSerializableMembers(this.GetType());
object[] values = FormatterServices.GetObjectData(this, members);
int j = 0;

for (int i = 0; i < members.Length; i++)
{
string[] var = members[i].ToString().Split(new char[] { ' ' });
switch (var[0])
{
case ""UInt32"":
values[i] = (UInt32)((message[j] << 24) + (message[j + 1] << 16) + (message[j + 2] << 8) + message[j + 3]);
j += 4;
break;
case ""UInt16"":
values[i] = (UInt16)((message[j] << 8) + message[j + 1]);
j += 2;
break;
case ""Byte"":
values[i] = (byte)message[j++];
break;
case ""UInt32[]"":
if (values[i] != null)
{
int len = ((UInt32[])values[i]).Length;
byte[] b = new byte[len * 4];
Array.Copy(message, j, b, 0, len * 4);
Array.Copy(Utilities.ByteArrayToUInt32Array(b), (UInt32[])values[i], len);
j += len * 4;
}
break;
case ""Byte[]"":
if (values[i] != null)
{
int len = ((byte[])values[i]).Length;
Array.Copy(message, j, (byte[])(values[i]), 0, len);
j += len;
}
break;
default:
throw new Exception(""ByteExtractable::SetMessageBytes Unsupported Type: "" + var[1] + "" is of type "" + var[0]);
}
}
FormatterServices.PopulateObjectMembers(this, members, values);
return true;
}"