C# byte array doesn't allocate correctly

Question

I'm trying to serialize an object in C#. I got the object size and saved it in a variable, size1 on line 207 in above screenshot. Size1 has a value of 160. Then I used size1 to allocate an array of bytes called buf in line 210. Buf comes out to be a 2 byte array! How can this be?!

Answer 1

The problem is here

byte[] buf = new byte[size1];
byte[] buf2 = new byte[16];
buf = b.ReadBytes(...); //<----

You are replacing buf with the result of ReadBytes . That throws away your original array and replaces it with the array that was returned from ReadBytes (which in your case was a two byte array)

Answer 2

ReadBytes() returns a byte[] . When you write

buf = b.ReadBytes(Marshal.SizeOf(firstRecord));

then buf points at a completely different byte[] that equals whatever b.ReadBytes() returned.

Answer 3

It looks like you're trying to convert some object into a byte array, this answer may help. Convert any object to a byte[]