VS 2010 - create string from delimited byte list

The objective is to create a string from a list of byte format. The list consists of a series of short commands composed of 2-5 bytes and ending with a ";" character. The code should peal off the first command to the delimiter. Here's the code currently used:

Code:

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dim SP2buf as new list(of byte)(2000)
dim todo(1000) as char
dim SP2idx as integer

 If SP2buf.Count > 0 Then
                SP2idx = SP2buf.IndexOf(59)  'find the ; delimiter
                If SP2idx >= 0 Then  ' is the ; there
                    todo = (SP2.Encoding.GetChars(SP2buf.ToArray, 0, SP2idx))
                End If
  End If

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Since the todo array gets converted to a string a bit later in the program, I want to just define it as a string to begin with and convert directly from the byte list to a string, but stopping the conversion when the delimiter is encountered. I haven't seen any VB capability to do that directly. Any help?

Convert the entire byte array to a string, then use string manipulators (split, substring, indexOf, etc) to get what you want.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kebo

Convert the entire byte array to a string, then use string manipulators (split, substring, indexOf, etc) to get what you want.

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If you mean to convert the entire list to a string, that's probably not a good idea here as another thread is adding to the list and the list could be a couple of hundred bytes long depending on activity.

So, you have a list that is constantly being added to, and there are preriodic ; as delimiters. You want to peal off items as they are available?

I'd have the other thread doing all that. What's it doing otherwise? After all, it sounds like all you are creating is a queue of messages. Most likely, the other thread can build to some local list until a ; is found, at which point it can convert that local list to a string, add the string to a Queue(of String), raise an event on the UI thread (or whatever the first thread is) to inform it that there is something in the queue (which it can then deal with as it gets to it), then clears it's local List and starts building it again. That's not asking much of either thread and puts the processing where it will work best.

That's not too far from the way it's designed. The first thread is reading a high speed serial port and the data is a string of requests and commands from a remote program. The thread builds a queue of those and this second thread removes a message from the queue, does the required processing and then waits for the first thread to signal that there's another message on the queue. At any point in time, there may be several messages in the queue waiting to be serviced. This is actually part of a larger system and there are a total of 7 threads (exclusive of UI thread) servicing 3 high speed ports. All of this works quite well and I'm just looking at eliminating some steps in handling the data.