Develop Reference

ZipArchive created with C# does not contain any entries

I am attempting to create a zipfile in ASP.NET MVC a single PDF file within it. However, using the code below, an empty zipfile is created. Can someone please advise what I am doing incorrectly?
public FileResult DownloadZipfile(string html)
{
MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream();
ZipArchive archive = new ZipArchive(memoryStream, ZipArchiveMode.Create, true);
byte[] rawDownload = PDFConverterUtils.PdfSharpConvert(html);
ZipArchiveEntry entry = archive.CreateEntry("MyPDF.pdf");
using (Stream entryStream = entry.Open())
using (StreamWriter streamWriter = new StreamWriter(entryStream))
{
streamWriter.BaseStream.Write(rawDownload, 0, rawDownload.Length);
}
return new FileStreamResult(memoryStream, System.Net.Mime.MediaTypeNames.Application.Zip) { FileDownloadName = "test.zip" };
}

When using a ZipArchive with a MemoryStream, I would suggest resetting the position of the stream after writing to it so that the content of the stream can be read by the response.
public FileResult DownloadZipfile(string html) {
byte[] rawDownload = PDFConverterUtils.PdfSharpConvert(html);
MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream();
using(ZipArchive archive = new ZipArchive(
stream: memoryStream,
mode: ZipArchiveMode.Create,
leaveOpen: true //To leave the memory stream open after disposal
)){
ZipArchiveEntry entry = archive.CreateEntry("MyPDF.pdf");
using (Stream entryStream = entry.Open()) {
entryStream.Write(rawDownload, 0, rawDownload.Length);
}
}
memoryStream.Position = 0;//reset memory stream position for read
return new FileStreamResult(memoryStream, System.Net.Mime.MediaTypeNames.Application.Zip) {
FileDownloadName = "test.zip"
};
}
As suggested in another answer you should dispose of the archive to force it to write its content to its underlying memory stream, but take note of the following
ZipArchive.Dispose()
Unless you construct the object by using the ZipArchive(Stream, ZipArchiveMode, Boolean) constructor overload and set its leaveOpen parameter to true, all underlying streams are closed and no longer available for subsequent write operations.
When you are finished using this instance of ZipArchive, call Dispose() to release all resources used by this instance. You should eliminate further references to this ZipArchive instance so that the garbage collector can reclaim the memory of the instance instead of keeping it alive for finalization.
Because you want to make use of the memory stream after writing to it, you need to make sure that it remains open, and that the position of the stream is reset to the beginning so that the content of the stream can be read from the start.

Saving MemoryStream to File produces 0 bytes

I'm using this code to write an MP3 MemoryStream to file:
using (var nSpeakStreamAsMp3 = new MemoryStream())
using (var nWavFileReader = new WaveFileReader(nSpeakStream))
using (var nMp3Writer = new LameMP3FileWriter(nSpeakStreamAsMp3, nWavFileReader.WaveFormat, LAMEPreset.STANDARD_FAST))
{
nWavFileReader.CopyTo(nMp3Writer);
string sPath = "C:\\inetpub\\wwwroot\\server\\bin\\mymp3.mp3";
using (FileStream nFile = new FileStream(sPath, FileMode.Create, System.IO.FileAccess.Write))
{
nSpeakStreamAsMp3.CopyTo(nFile);
}
sRet = (String.Concat("data:audio/mpeg;base64,", Convert.ToBase64String(nSpeakStreamAsMp3.ToArray())));
}
return sRet;
For some reason which I don't see, this produces a file of 0 bytes.
However, the MP3 stream is valid and does work. I'm passing it as a Base64String to a website, and I do hear it.
Where might be the error here?

nSpeakStreamAsMp3 is currently positioned at the end of the stream; you need to think like a VCR: be kind, rewind (nSpeakStreamAsMp3.Position = 0;) before you copy the value out again
make sure you flush nMp3Writer; if possible, close nMp3Writer completely

Modify File Stream in memory

I am reading a file using StreamReader fileReader = File.OpenText(filePath). I would like to modify one line in the file in memory and push the modified stream to another method.
What I would like to avoid is reading the whole file into a string and modifying the string (doesn't scale). I would also like to avoid modifying the actual file.
Is there a straightforward way of doing this?

There is no built-in way to do that in .Net framework.
Stream and StreamReader/StreamWriter classes are designed to be chained if necessary (like GZipStream wraps stream to compress it). So you can create wrapper StreamReader and update data as you need for every operation after calling wrapped reader.

You can open two stream -one for read, one for write- at the same time. I tested simple code that works, but not sure that's what you want:
// "2.bar\r\n" will be replaced by "!!!!!\r\n"
File.WriteAllText("test.txt",
#"1.foo
2.bar
3.fake");
// open inputStream for StreamReader, and open outputStream for StreamWriter
using (var inputStream = File.Open("test.txt", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite))
using (var reader = new StreamReader(inputStream))
using (var outputStream = File.Open("test.txt", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Write, FileShare.Read))
using (var writer = new StreamWriter(outputStream))
{
var position = 0L; // track the reading position
var newLineLength = Environment.NewLine.Length;
while (!reader.EndOfStream)
{
var line = reader.ReadLine();
// your particular conditions here.
if (line.StartsWith("2."))
{
// seek line start position
outputStream.Seek(position, SeekOrigin.Begin);
// replace by something,
// but the length should be equal to original in this case.
writer.WriteLine(new String('!', line.Length));
}
position += line.Length + newLineLength;
}
}
/* as a result, test.txt will be:
1.foo
!!!!!
3.fake
*/
As you can see, both streams can be accessed by StreamReader and StreamWriter at the same time. And you can also manipulate both read/write position as well.

StreamReader is too greedy

I'm trying to process part of a text file, and write the remainder of the text file to a cloud blob using UploadFromStream. The problem is that the StreamReader appears to be grabbing too much content from the underlying stream, and so the subsequent write does nothing.
Text file:
3
Col1,String
Col2,Integer
Col3,Boolean
abc,123,True
def,3456,False
ghijkl,532,True
mnop,1211,False
Code:
using (var stream = File.OpenRead("c:\\test\\testinput.txt"))
using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream))
{
var numColumns = int.Parse(reader.ReadLine());
while (numColumns-- > 0)
{
var colDescription = reader.ReadLine();
// do stuff
}
// Write remaining contents to another file, for testing
using (var destination = File.OpenWrite("c:\\test\\testoutput.txt"))
{
stream.CopyTo(destination);
destination.Flush();
}
// Actual intended usage:
// CloudBlockBlob blob = ...;
// blob.UploadFromStream(stream);
}
When debugging, I observe that stream.Position jumps to the end of the file on the first call to reader.ReadLine(), which I don't expect. I expected the stream to be advanced only as many positions as the reader needed to read some content.
I imagine that the stream reader is doing some buffering for performance reasons, but there doesn't seem to be a way to ask the reader where in the underlying stream it "really" is. (If there was, I could manually Seek the stream to that position before CopyingTo).
I know that I could keep taking lines using the same reader and sequentially append them to the text file I'm writing, but I'm wondering if there's a cleaner way?
EDIT:
I found a StreamReader constructor which leaves the underlying stream open when it is disposed, so I tried this, hoping that the reader would set the stream's position as it's being disposed:
using (var stream = File.OpenRead("c:\\test\\testinput.txt"))
{
using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream, Encoding.UTF8,
detectEncodingFromByteOrderMarks: true,
bufferSize: 1 << 12,
leaveOpen: true))
{
var numColumns = int.Parse(reader.ReadLine());
while (numColumns-- > 0)
{
var colDescription = reader.ReadLine();
// do stuff
}
}
// Write remaining contents to another file
using (var destination = File.OpenWrite("c:\\test\\testoutput.txt"))
{
stream.CopyTo(destination);
destination.Flush();
}
}
But it doesn't. Why would this constructor be exposed if it doesn't leave the stream in an intuitive state/position?

Sure, there's a cleaner way. Use ReadToEnd to read the remaining data, and then write it to a new file. For example:
using (var reader = new StreamReader("c:\\test\\testinput.txt"))
{
var numColumns = int.Parse(reader.ReadLine());
while (numColumns-- > 0)
{
var colDescription = reader.ReadLine();
// do stuff
}
// write everything else to another file.
File.WriteAllText("c:\\test\\testoutput.txt", reader.ReadToEnd());
}
Edit after comment
If you want to read the text and upload it to a stream, you could replace the File.WriteAllText with code that reads the remaining text, writes it to a StreamWriter backed by a MemoryStream, and then sends the contents of that MemoryStream. Something like:
using (var memStream = new MemoryStream())
{
using (var writer = new StreamWriter(memStream))
{
writer.Write(reader.ReadToEnd());
writer.Flush();
memStream.Position = 0;
blob.UploadFromStream(memStream);
}
}

You should never access the underlying stream of a StreamReader. Trying to use both is going to have an undefined behavior.
What's going on here is that the reader is buffering the data from the underlying stream. It doesn't read each byte exactly when you request it, because that's often going to be very inefficient. Instead it will grab chunks, put them in a buffer, and then provide you with data from that buffer, grabbing a new chunk when it needs to.
You should continue to use the StreamReader throughout the remainder of that block, instead of using stream. To minimize the memory footprint of the program, the most effective way of doing this would be to read the next line from the reader in a loop until it his the end of the file, writing each line to the output stream as you go.
Also note that you don't need to be disposing of both the stream reader and the underlying stream. The stream reader will dispose of the underlying stream itself, so you can simply adjust your header to:
using (var reader = new StreamReader(
File.OpenRead("c:\\test\\testinput.txt")))

Inconsistent file size change while writing bytes from stream to a file

I have a file with size 10124, I am adding a byte array, which has length 4 in the beginning of the file.
After that the file size should become 10128, but as I write it to file, the size decreased to 22 bytes. I don't know where is the problem
public void AppendAllBytes(string path, byte[] bytes)
{
var encryptedFile = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
////argument-checking here.
Stream header = new MemoryStream(bytes);
var result = new MemoryStream();
header.CopyTo(result);
encryptedFile.CopyTo(result);
using (var writer = new StreamWriter(#"C:\\Users\\life.monkey\\Desktop\\B\\New folder (2)\\aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.docx.aef"))
{
writer.Write(result);
}
}
How can I write bytes to the file?

The issue seems to be caused by:
using a StreamWriter to write binary formatted data. The name does not inthuitively suggest this, but the StreamWriter class is suited for writing textual data.
passing an entire stream instead of the actual binary data. To obtain the bytes stored in a MemoryStream, use its convenient ToArray() method.
I suggest you the following code:
public void AppendAllBytes(string path, byte[] bytes)
{
var fileName = #"C:\\Users\\life.monkey\\Desktop\\B\\New folder (2)\\aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.docx.aef";
using (var encryptedFile = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
using (var writer = new BinaryWriter(File.Open(fileName, FileMode.Append)))
using (var result = new MemoryStream())
{
encryptedFile.CopyTo(result);
result.Flush(); // ensure header is entirely written.
// write header directly, no need to put it in a memory stream
writer.Write(bytes);
writer.Flush(); // ensure the header is written to the result stream.
writer.Write(result.ToArray());
writer.Flush(); // ensure the encryptdFile is written to the result stream.
}
}
The code above uses the BinaryWriter class which is better suited for binary data. It has a Write(byte[] bytes) method overload that is used above to write an entire array to the file. The code uses regular calls to the Flush() method that some may consider not needed, but these guarantee in general, that all the data written prior the call of the Flush() method is persisted within the stream.