Develop Reference

DeflateStream.Flush() has no functionality?

I was trying to compress a byte array using DeflateStream. After wring the data, I was looking for a way to close the compression (mark as done). At first, I tried Dispose() then Close(), but those made the result MemoryStream unreadable. Then I thought I may need to Flush(), but the description said "The current implementation of this method has no functionality"
But it seems that without Flush(), the result seems empty. What does it mean that "The current implementation of this method has no functionality"?
static void Main(string[] args)
{
byte[] result = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("わたしのこいはみなみのかぜにのってはしるわ");
var output = new MemoryStream();
var dstream = new DeflateStream(output, CompressionLevel.Optimal);
dstream.Write(result, 0, result.Length);
var compressedSize1 = output.Position;
dstream.Flush();
var compressedSize2 = output.Position;

What does it mean that "The current implementation of this method has no functionality" ?
it means: it doesn't do anything, so calling Flush() by itself isn't going to help. You need to close the deflate stream for it to finish writing what it needs, but without closing the underlying stream (blocks will be written as you write to the stream, as the internal buffer fills - but the final partial block cannot be written until the data is ready to be terminated; not all compression sequences support being able to flush at an arbitrary point and then resume compressed data in additional blocks)
What you probably want is:
using (var dstream = new DeflateStream(output, CompressionLevel.Optimal, true))
{
// Your deflate code
}
// Now check the memory stream
Note the extra bool leaveOpen parameter usage.

Using unseakable stream more than once

using (var stream = GetS3ObjectStream(fooObj))
{
WriteStreamToFtp(stream, "ftp://firstserver");
WriteStreamToFtp(stream, "ftp://SecondServer");
}
First one would work, but the second one will create just an empty file
GetS3ObjectStream gets a stream for Amazon Simple storage object. It's unseakable stream and you can't change the cursor position in it.
Now, I either have to somehow restrict to use the stream object more than once or I have to to move the cursor to the beginning.
any ideas?
upd: yeah of course you can simply save the stream in temp. variable, but if you don't wanna do that, what then? is it ok to make methods that take streams and leave them with such side-effects?
what if I close and dispose the source stream in the method?

You can either re-create your stream or buffer it into a byte[] or MemoryStream before use.
Edit: I forgot to mention a solution which does not buffer:
Open the two destination streams
Open the source stream
Until the source is drained, read a buffer of N bytes and write the buffer to both destination streams (you can even do the writing in parallel using Parallel.Invoke())

Here’s an example of how it may be done reading the stream just once (without initializing a temporary copy of the stream’s contents).
This assumes that you can replace your WriteStreamToFtp call with access to the actual target stream. Note that the FtpStream constructor is placeholder code.
using (var source = GetS3ObjectStream(fooObj))
using (var target1 = new FtpStream("ftp://firstserver"))
using (var target2 = new FtpStream("ftp://SecondServer"))
{
byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
while (true)
{
int count = source.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
if (count == 0)
break;
target1.Write(buffer, 0, count);
target2.Write(buffer, 0, count);
}
}

Binary Reader and Writer open at same time?

I'm writing code that deals with a file that uses hashes. I need to read a chunk, then hash it, then write it, then read another chunk, etc.
In other words, I need to do a lot of reading and writing. I'm sure this is really simple, but I just wanted to run it by the pros...
Is it possible, and acceptable to do something like:
BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader (File.OpenRead(path));
BinaryWriter bw = new BinaryWriter (File.OpenWrite(path));
br.dostuff();
bw.dostuff();
I remember running into some sort of conflicting file streams error when experimenting with opening and writing to files, and I'm not sure what I had done to get it. Is it two file streams that's the issue? Can I have one stream to read from and write to?

This is perfecty possible and desired, A technicality, if your write method doesn't change the length of the file and is always behind the reader, this should not give any problems. In fact, from an API point of view, this is desirable since this allows the user to control where to read from and where to write to. (It's a recommended specification to write to a different file, in case any bad things happen during the encryption process, your input file wont be messed up).
Something like:
protected void Encrypt(Stream input, Stream output)
{
byte[] buffer = new byte[2048];
while (true)
{
// read
int current = input.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
if (current == 0)
break;
// encrypt
PerformActualEncryption(buffer, 0, current);
// write
output.Write(buffer, 0, current);
}
}
public void Main()
{
using (Stream inputStream = File.Open("file.dat", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite))
using (Stream outputStream = File.Open("file.dat", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Write, FileShare.ReadWrite))
{
Encrypt(inputStream, outputStream);
}
}
Now since you're using an encryption, i would even recommend to perform the actual encryption in another specialized stream. This cleans the code up nicely.
class MySpecialHashingStream : Stream
{
...
}
protected void Encrypt(Stream input, Stream output)
{
Stream encryptedOutput = new MySpecialHashingStream(output);
input.CopyTo(encryptedOutput);
}

"Object can be disposed of more than once" error

When I run code analysis on the following chunk of code I get this message:
Object 'stream' can be disposed more than once in method 'upload.Page_Load(object, EventArgs)'. To avoid generating a System.ObjectDisposedException you should not call Dispose more than one time on an object.
using(var stream = File.Open(newFilename, FileMode.CreateNew))
using(var reader = new BinaryReader(file.InputStream))
using(var writer = new BinaryWriter(stream))
{
var chunk = new byte[ChunkSize];
Int32 count;
while((count = reader.Read(chunk, 0, ChunkSize)) > 0)
{
writer.Write(chunk, 0, count);
}
}
I don't understand why it might be called twice, and how to fix it to eliminate the error. Any help?

I struggled with this problem and found the example here to be very helpful. I'll post the code for a quick view:
using (Stream stream = new FileStream("file.txt", FileMode.OpenOrCreate))
{
using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(stream))
{
// Use the writer object...
}
}
Replace the outer using statement with a try/finally making sure to BOTH null the stream after using it in StreamWriter AND check to make sure it is not null in the finally before disposing.
Stream stream = null;
try
{
stream = new FileStream("file.txt", FileMode.OpenOrCreate);
using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(stream))
{
stream = null;
// Use the writer object...
}
}
finally
{
if(stream != null)
stream.Dispose();
}
Doing this cleared up my errors.

To illustrate, let's edit your code
using(var stream = File.Open(newFilename, FileMode.CreateNew))
{
using(var reader = new BinaryReader(file.InputStream))
{
using(var writer = new BinaryWriter(stream))
{
var chunk = new byte[ChunkSize];
Int32 count;
while((count = reader.Read(chunk, 0, ChunkSize)) > 0)
{
writer.Write(chunk, 0, count);
}
} // here we dispose of writer, which disposes of stream
} // here we dispose of reader
} // here we dispose a stream, which was already disposed of by writer
To avoid this, just create the writer directly
using(var reader = new BinaryReader(file.InputStream))
{
using(var writer = new BinaryWriter( File.Open(newFilename, FileMode.CreateNew)))
{
var chunk = new byte[ChunkSize];
Int32 count;
while((count = reader.Read(chunk, 0, ChunkSize)) > 0)
{
writer.Write(chunk, 0, count);
}
} // here we dispose of writer, which disposes of its inner stream
} // here we dispose of reader
edit: to take into account what Eric Lippert is saying, there could indeed be a moment when the stream is only released by the finalizer if BinaryWriter throws an exception. According to the BinaryWriter code, that could occur in three cases
If (output Is Nothing) Then
Throw New ArgumentNullException("output")
End If
If (encoding Is Nothing) Then
Throw New ArgumentNullException("encoding")
End If
If Not output.CanWrite Then
Throw New ArgumentException(Environment.GetResourceString("Argument_StreamNotWritable"))
End If
if you didn't specify an output, ie if stream is null. That shouldn't be a problem since a null stream means no resources to dispose of :)
if you didn't specify an encoding. since we don't use the constructor form where the encoding is specified, there should be no problem here either (i didn't look into the encoding contructor too much, but an invalid codepage can throw)
if you don't pass a writable stream. That should be caught quite quickly during development...
Anyway, good point, hence the edit :)

The BinaryReader/BinaryWriter will dispose the underlying stream for you when it disposes. You don't need to do it explicitly.
To fix it you can remove the using around the Stream itself.

A proper implementation of Dispose is explicitly required not to care if it's been called more than once on the same object. While multiple calls to Dispose are sometimes indicative of logic problems or code which could be better written, the only way I would improve the original posted code would be to convince Microsoft to add an option to BinaryReader and BinaryWriter instructing them not to dispose their passed-in stream (and then use that option). Otherwise, the code required to ensure the file gets closed even if the reader or writer throws in its constructor would be sufficiently ugly that simply letting the file get disposed more than once would seem cleaner.

Your writer will dispose your stream, always.

Suppress CA2202 whenever you are sure that the object in question handles multiple Dispose calls correctly and that your control flow is impeccably readable. BCL objects generally implement Dispose correctly. Streams are famous for that.
But don't necessarily trust third party or your own streams if you don't have unit tests probing that scenario yet. An API which returns a Stream may be returning a fragile subclass.

Convert a Stream to a FileStream in C#

What is the best method to convert a Stream to a FileStream using C#.
The function I am working on has a Stream passed to it containing uploaded data, and I need to be able to perform stream.Read(), stream.Seek() methods which are methods of the FileStream type.
A simple cast does not work, so I'm asking here for help.

Read and Seek are methods on the Stream type, not just FileStream. It's just that not every stream supports them. (Personally I prefer using the Position property over calling Seek, but they boil down to the same thing.)
If you would prefer having the data in memory over dumping it to a file, why not just read it all into a MemoryStream? That supports seeking. For example:
public static MemoryStream CopyToMemory(Stream input)
{
// It won't matter if we throw an exception during this method;
// we don't *really* need to dispose of the MemoryStream, and the
// caller should dispose of the input stream
MemoryStream ret = new MemoryStream();
byte[] buffer = new byte[8192];
int bytesRead;
while ((bytesRead = input.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) > 0)
{
ret.Write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
}
// Rewind ready for reading (typical scenario)
ret.Position = 0;
return ret;
}
Use:
using (Stream input = ...)
{
using (Stream memory = CopyToMemory(input))
{
// Seek around in memory to your heart's content
}
}
This is similar to using the Stream.CopyTo method introduced in .NET 4.
If you actually want to write to the file system, you could do something similar that first writes to the file then rewinds the stream... but then you'll need to take care of deleting it afterwards, to avoid littering your disk with files.