Good Morning folks,

Today I read about streams and files, and as usual I provide my notes as a summary. enjoy !

Textfiles

• To read a textfile, we can use TextReader or StreamReader Class
• To write a textfile, we can use TextWriter or StreamWriter Class
• StreamReader derives from TextReader
• Usually you use File.OpenText or StreamReader Constructor
• Typically we use ReadLine or ReadToEnd Methods to read data
• Dont forget to call Close on the Reader or Writer after finished reading or writing
• To ensure, that no data is left in the buffer while keeping the file open use the Flush Method

Binary Files

• To read and write binary files, use BinaryReader and BinaryWriter
• Generally serialization is more effective

Strings

• Use StringWriter to write data to StringBuilder
• Not used very often, only in special scenarios

MemoryStream

• To create a stream in memory
• Commonly used to store data temporarily that will be written to a file eventually
• To Minimize the time a file is locked open, minimizes the potential for conflict
• MemoryStream often is used with a StreamWriter, cause MS itself has only WriteByte/Write, and ReadByte/Read Methods that work with bytes and byte-arrays

BufferedStream

• Is used for custom stream implements
• .NET Stream Classes have a build-in buffering logic, so you normally dont need to use BufferedStream. If you do so its redundant and inefficent

Compressed Streams

• You can only read or write bytes and byte-arrays directly, but you can use StreamWriter and StreamReader
• Use GZipStream Class for GZIP-Compression and DeflatedStream class for Deflated Data Format
• CompressionMode which is part of the constructor indicates simply if you are compressing or decompressing data

Isolated Storage

• Isolated Storage is a private file system
• It requires fewer privileges than writing to filesystem
• IS is isolated by user, application domain and assembly
• Don’t use to store high-value secrets or sensitive data, because its not protected from high-trusted code, unmanaged code or trusted users of the computer
• The access to a file is restricted to the user who created it
• isolation by application domain is optional
• In most case (almost always) you will use the isolation by application-domain
• Classes to work with Isolated Storage (All in System.IO.IsolatedStorage)
  1. IsolatedStorageFile – Management of Isolated Storage Stores (Often Used Methods are .GetUserStoreForAssembly, .GetUserStoreForDomain, .GetStore
  2. IsolatedStorageFileStream – Access to read/write Isolated Storage files
  3. IsolatedStorageException – exception related to Isolated Sotrage
• Code must be granted IsolatedStorageFilePermission