C# - stream question

Question

When I was writing some I/O routine in C++, I would usually make it as generic as possible, by operating on the interfaces from <iostream>.

For example:

void someRoutine(std::istream& stream) { ... }

How should the same be done in C#?

I suspect I could write my routines based on the System.IO.TextReader or System.IO.TextWriter, but I'm not sure.

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Obviously I'm seeking for a same base class in C#, which is as generic as std::istream or std::ostream and which can be extended in many ways (for example, as boost::iostreams extends the std:: streams).

Answer 1

If you want to work with strings, you should take a TextReader or TextWriter.

If you want to work with bytes, you should take a Stream.

These classes are inherited by concrete implementations such as FileStream, StringWriter, and NetworkStream.

Answer 2

Use System.IO.Stream if you only care about bytes. TextReader / TextWriter are for when you know the underlying data to be text.

Answer 3

The base class is Stream. MemoryStream, FileStream, etc. inherit from this class.