Anyone know a good and effective way to search/match for a byte pattern in an byte[] array and then return the positions.
For example
byte[] pattern = new byte[] {12,3,5,76,8,0,6,125};
byte[] toBeSearched = new byte[] {23,36,43,76,125,56,34,234,12,3,5,76,8,0,6,125,234,56,211,122,22,4,7,89,76,64,12,3,5,76,8,0,6,125}
May I suggest something that doesn't involve creating strings, copying arrays or unsafe code:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
static class ByteArrayRocks
{
static readonly int[] Empty = new int[0];
public static int[] Locate (this byte[] self, byte[] candidate)
{
if (IsEmptyLocate(self, candidate))
return Empty;
var list = new List<int>();
for (int i = 0; i < self.Length; i++)
{
if (!IsMatch(self, i, candidate))
continue;
list.Add(i);
}
return list.Count == 0 ? Empty : list.ToArray();
}
static bool IsMatch (byte[] array, int position, byte[] candidate)
{
if (candidate.Length > (array.Length - position))
return false;
for (int i = 0; i < candidate.Length; i++)
if (array[position + i] != candidate[i])
return false;
return true;
}
static bool IsEmptyLocate (byte[] array, byte[] candidate)
{
return array == null
|| candidate == null
|| array.Length == 0
|| candidate.Length == 0
|| candidate.Length > array.Length;
}
static void Main()
{
var data = new byte[] { 23, 36, 43, 76, 125, 56, 34, 234, 12, 3, 5, 76, 8, 0, 6, 125, 234, 56, 211, 122, 22, 4, 7, 89, 76, 64, 12, 3, 5, 76, 8, 0, 6, 125 };
var pattern = new byte[] { 12, 3, 5, 76, 8, 0, 6, 125 };
foreach (var position in data.Locate(pattern))
Console.WriteLine(position);
}
}
Edit (by IAbstract) - moving contents of post here since it is not an answer
Out of curiosity, I've created a small benchmark with different answers.
Here are the results for a million iterations:
solution [Locate]: 00:00:00.7714027
solution [FindAll]: 00:00:03.5404399
solution [SearchBytePattern]: 00:00:01.1105190
solution [MatchBytePattern]: 00:00:03.0658212
Use LINQ Methods.
public static IEnumerable<int> PatternAt(byte[] source, byte[] pattern)
{
for (int i = 0; i < source.Length; i++)
{
if (source.Skip(i).Take(pattern.Length).SequenceEqual(pattern))
{
yield return i;
}
}
}
Very simple!
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