How to get text files faster than StreamReader.ReadToEnd()

[aewarnick]

I was told that ReadToEnd() was slower than if you put the whole thing into a byte[] and went from there. I think I am having problems, because my method is so much slower than ReadToEnd() is:

 

public static object Read(ref string path)
	{
		string g="";
		if(File.Exists(path))
		{
			Stream F=new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
			byte[]b=new Byte[F.Length];
			F.Read(b, 0, Convert.ToInt32(F.Length));

			for(int i=0; i< b.Length; i++)
			{
				if(b[i]==0) break;
				g+=(char)b[i];
			}
		//StreamReader s=new StreamReader(path);
		//string g= s.ReadToEnd();
		//s.Close();
MessageBox.Show(g);
			F.Close();
		}
		return g;
	}

 

Why is mine so slow?

Edited March 14, 2003 by divil

[divil]

You are concatenating a string each time, which means completely recreating it for every byte in your file. To instantly convert a byte array in to a string, look at System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetString().

[aewarnick]

Do I have to write that whole thing all the time? Why can't I put in up at the top with all the other using's?

[Nerseus]

Yes, you can put "using System.Text.Encoding" at the top and call "ASCII.GetString()".

 

-Ner

[aewarnick]

Actually only

using System.Text;

works.