How to replace some bytes of a binary file

There is probably some logic you use to decide which bytes to replace and with what bytes exactly. You did not give details so I cannot help you with this.

Here is however some info which classes to use:

- FileStream with the file name and the needed file mode to specify and open the file
- BinaryReader to read from the file
- BinaryWriter to write to the file

For more info see the documentation of the FileStream constructor (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfsystemiofilestreamclassctortopic2.asp). You can find here also specific topics for reading/writing to a file.

You can also directly write to and read from the FileStream. For more info see the members Read() and Write().

Do you want to search for a byte sequence or do you know the position?

This is what I want after modified a bit.

But, if I want to replace not only TWO bytes, not any number of bytes generically, any approaches?

Sure... The best method would be to Not read each byte one at a time, but to actually read in a few hundred K into an array, and the scan the array for the special sequence you are looking for.


The only thing that you really need is a pattern or a particular series of bytes you want to remove.

Let's suppose you want to remove any series that looks like any one of the following

{0x82, 0x34, 0x65, 0xAF}
{0x23, 0xCA, 0x67}
(0x27, 0x17, 0x99, 0x54, 0xA3, 0xF4, 0x3C}


and replace all of those bytes with
{0xFF, 0xFF}

The easiest method would be to load all of your bytes into an array list (if you are not familiar with arraylists, they are like arrays only you can add and remove data from them and they can change size).

Unfortunately since I am not at work I don't have VS.Net in front of me, however I do know that there is a Find() function that requires a value and a starting point and an ending point.

So you simply search for 0x82 and when you find it, see if myArray[n+1]  == 0x34, etc...

If it does, remove the appropriate number of cells and then insert your values.  

Then when you are done you just convert back to a byte array

byte[] bArr = myArrList.ToArray(byte);  //??
byte[] bArr = (byte)myArrList.ToArray();  //??

//like I said, I don't have the IDE in front of me so I'm afraid I can't be as precise as I'd like.  I'll check back in tomorrow when I am at work and I'll have better code then