How to Read an embedded resource as array of bytes without writing it to disk?

.net, c#, codedom, embedded-resource, system-codedom-compiler

Solution

You are actually already reading the stream to a byte array, why not just stop there?

public static byte[] ExtractResource(String filename)
{
    System.Reflection.Assembly a = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
    using (Stream resFilestream = a.GetManifestResourceStream(filename))
    {
        if (resFilestream == null) return null;
        byte[] ba = new byte[resFilestream.Length];
        resFilestream.Read(ba, 0, ba.Length);
        return ba;
    }
}

edit: See comments for a preferable reading pattern.

Problem

In my application I compile another program from source.cs file using CodeDom.Compiler and I embed some resources ( exe and dll files ) at compile time using : ``` // .... rest of code if (provider.Supports(GeneratorSupport.Resources)) { cp.EmbeddedResources.Add("MyFile.exe"); } if (provider.Supports(GeneratorSupport.Resources)) { cp.EmbeddedResources.Add("New.dll"); } // ....rest of code ``` In the compiled file, I need to read the embedded resources as array of bytes. Now I'm doing that by extracting the resources to disk using the function below and the use ``` File.ReadAllBytes("extractedfile.exe"); File.ReadAllBytes("extracteddll.dll"); ``` I do this after extracting the two files to disk using this function : ``` public static void ExtractSaveResource(String filename, String location) { // Assembly assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly(); System.Reflection.Assembly a = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly(); // Stream stream = assembly.GetManifestResourceStream("Installer.Properties.mydll.dll"); // or whatever // string my_namespace = a.GetName().Name.ToString(); Stream resFilestream = a.GetManifestResourceStream(filename); if (resFilestream != null) { BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader(resFilestream); FileStream fs = new FileStream(location, FileMode.Create); // say BinaryWriter bw = new BinaryWriter(fs); byte[] ba = new byte[resFilestream.Length]; resFilestream.Read(ba, 0, ba.Length); bw.Write(ba); br.Close(); bw.Close(); resFilestream.Close(); } // this.Close(); } ``` How can I do the same thing (Get the embedded resources as array of bytes) but without writing anything to hard disk?

Original source