Convert multiple types data into a specific length of byte array

Question

Following this question I have extracted a byte into a specific bit . Now I have to go back to origin. But couldn't find any suitable solution to back. I have a byte array and it's length is 3. Extracted the array in the following function.

public static void ParserData(byte[] data)
{
    
    int x = data[0] >> 6;
    int y = data[0] & 63;
    byte[] btMac = data.SubArray(1, 2);
    string btmac= BitConverter.ToString(value: btMac, 0);
    
}

From the above ParserData function I have extracted x and y from data[0] and btmac from data.SubArray(1, 2) . Now I have to push x and y value to data[0] and btmac to data[1,2] in GenerateData(int x, int y, string btmac) function so that the both function will be vice-versa.

public static byte[] GenerateData(int x, int y, string btmac)
{
    byte[] data = new byte[3];
    
    // code goes here

    return data;
}

Getting stack to solve this issue and find no solution. How do I do that?

Answer 1

You should be able to do something like this

var xy = (byte)((x << 6) | y) // combine bits from x and y into a byte, this assumes values are in a valid range
var ms = new MemoryStream();
using( var bw = new BinaryWriter(ms)){
    bw.Write(xy); // write the xy byte
    bw.Write(btmac[0]); // write the single character in the string
}
var result = ms.ToArray(); // create an array with the result

Note that this is completely untested.

In general I would recommend using a real serialization library rather than messing around with serializing/deserializing binary data yourself. Something like Protobuf.Net should only produce marginally larger data-size, while being much easier to use, and also provide much more compatibility in just about every way.