Find String inside of a Byte array

[rex64]

How do you search for a string inside of a byte array? I know it is there, but the sizeIndex always comes up as -1. I looked at the bytes and they are at the very beginning, but it can not find them. I would like to know the position of the data in the array.

Code:

Dim theBytes As Byte() = ASCII.GetBytes("ENDSIZE".ToArray)
Dim sizeIndex As Integer = Array.IndexOf(data, theBytes)

theBytes = {Length=7}

data = {Length=47465}
Beginning of data:
ENDSIZE;ScreenWidth+1376+ScreenHeight

[jmcilhinney]

Why exactly are you looking for text in a Byte array? Would it not make more sense to search for text in a String?

[Peter Swinkels]

How do you search for a string inside of a byte array? I know it is there, but the sizeIndex always comes up as -1. I looked at the bytes and they are at the very beginning, but it can not find them. I would like to know the position of the data in the array.

Code:

Dim theBytes As Byte() = ASCII.GetBytes("ENDSIZE".ToArray)
Dim sizeIndex As Integer = Array.IndexOf(data, theBytes)

theBytes = {Length=7}

data = {Length=47465}
Beginning of data:
ENDSIZE;ScreenWidth+1376+ScreenHeight

Try this:

Option Compare Binary
Option Explicit On
Option Infer Off
Option Strict On

Imports System
Imports System.Text

Public Module Module1

   Public Sub Main()
      Dim Bytes() As Byte = {}
      Dim Found As Boolean = Nothing
      Dim SearchText() As Byte = {}
      Dim UnicodeEncodingO As New UnicodeEncoding

      Bytes = UnicodeEncodingO.GetBytes("This is the byte array to be searched.")
      SearchText = UnicodeEncodingO.GetBytes("array")
      For Index1 As Integer = Bytes.GetLowerBound(0) To Bytes.GetUpperBound(0) - (SearchText.GetUpperBound(0) - SearchText.GetLowerBound(0))
         Found = True
         For Index2 As Integer = SearchText.GetLowerBound(0) To SearchText.GetUpperBound(0)
            If Not Bytes(Index1 + Index2) = SearchText(Index2) Then
               Found = False
               Exit For
            End If
         Next Index2
         If Found Then
            Console.WriteLine("Found at: {0}", Index1)
            Exit For
         End If
      Next Index1
   End Sub
End Module

[rex64]

This is for parsing binary data received over the network. I guess the best option would be to re-structure our network code, and I think we may have done that in newer programs. It would still be cool to have a fast search for string inside of a byte array though