How to Read an embedded resource as array of bytes without writing it to disk?

Question

In my application I compile another program from source.cs file using CodeDom.Compiler and I embed some resources ( exe and dll files ) at compile time using :

 // .... rest of code  if (provider.Supports(GeneratorSupport.Resources)) {     cp.EmbeddedResources.Add("MyFile.exe"); } if (provider.Supports(GeneratorSupport.Resources)) {     cp.EmbeddedResources.Add("New.dll"); } // ....rest of code  

In the compiled file, I need to read the embedded resources as array of bytes. Now I'm doing that by extracting the resources to disk using the function below and the use

File.ReadAllBytes("extractedfile.exe"); File.ReadAllBytes("extracteddll.dll"); 

I do this after extracting the two files to disk using this function :

public static void ExtractSaveResource(String filename, String location) {     //  Assembly assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();     System.Reflection.Assembly a = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();     // Stream stream = assembly.GetManifestResourceStream("Installer.Properties.mydll.dll"); // or whatever      // string my_namespace = a.GetName().Name.ToString();     Stream resFilestream = a.GetManifestResourceStream(filename);     if (resFilestream != null)     {         BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader(resFilestream);         FileStream fs = new FileStream(location, FileMode.Create); // say          BinaryWriter bw = new BinaryWriter(fs);         byte[] ba = new byte[resFilestream.Length];         resFilestream.Read(ba, 0, ba.Length);         bw.Write(ba);         br.Close();         bw.Close();         resFilestream.Close();     }     // this.Close();  } 

How can I do the same thing (Get the embedded resources as array of bytes) but without writing anything to hard disk?

Answer 1

You are actually already reading the stream to a byte array, why not just stop there?

public static byte[] ExtractResource(String filename) {     System.Reflection.Assembly a = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();     using (Stream resFilestream = a.GetManifestResourceStream(filename))     {         if (resFilestream == null) return null;         byte[] ba = new byte[resFilestream.Length];         resFilestream.Read(ba, 0, ba.Length);         return ba;     } } 

edit: See comments for a preferable reading pattern.