C# Convert String to Stream, and Stream to String

It’s fairly easy to convert a C# String to a Stream and vice-versa.

Convert String to Stream

To convert a C# String to a MemoryStream object, use the GetBytes Encoding method to create a byte array, then pass that to the MemoryStream constructor:

1 2	byte[] byteArray = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes( test ); MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream( byteArray );

Convert Stream to String

To convert a Stream object (or any of its derived streams) to a C# String, create a StreamReader object, then call the ReadToEnd method:

1 2	StreamReader reader = new StreamReader( stream ); string text = reader.ReadToEnd();

Console Test Program

Here is a simple test program to demonstrate this round-trip conversion:

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using System; using System.IO; using System.Text;   namespace CSharp411 {     class Program     {         static void Main( string[] args )         {             string test = "Testing 1-2-3";               // convert string to stream             byte[] byteArray = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes( test );             MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream( byteArray );               // convert stream to string             StreamReader reader = new StreamReader( stream );             string text = reader.ReadToEnd();               Console.WriteLine( text );             Console.ReadLine();         }     } }