Converting C# void* to byte[]
- by Yurik
In C#, I need to write T[] to a stream, ideally without any additional buffers. I have a dynamic code that converts T[] (where T is a no-objects struct) to a void* and fixes it in memory, and that works great. When the stream was a file, I could use native Windows API to pass the void * directly, but now I need to write to a generic Stream object that takes byte[]. Can anyone suggest a hack way to create a dummy array object which does not actually have any heap allocations, but rather points to an already existing (and fixed) heap location.
This is the pseudo-code that I need:
void Write(Stream stream, T[] buffer)
{
fixed( void* ptr = &buffer ) // done with dynamic code generation
{
int typeSize = sizeof(T); // done as well
byte[] dummy = (byte[]) ptr; // <-- how do I create this fake array?
stream.Write( dummy, 0, buffer.Length*typeSize );
}
}
