Convert XML data to byte array...

Question

Hello All,
In my application, i have an XML file and the corresponding XSD file. This XML file is having some date, which i want to convert into an byte[] and then save it in a file. 
How i can convert the XML data in the byte[]? Here as an example of the xml file and the byte[] data which i want to save in a file.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<HeadersInfo>
<header>
<id>0</id>
<Name>H1</Name>
</header>
<header>
<id>1</id>
<Name>H2</Name>
</header>
</HeasersInfo>
In the above example 'id' field is of type 'uint' and 'name' field is of type 'string' with max length of '5'. So in this case my byte array should be as shown below:
00 00 00 01 48 31 00 00 00
00 00 00 02 48 32 00 00 00
Here underlines values are for the 'id' parameter where as values in bold are for 'Name' parameter for all the header values in sequence. Name parameter is null (0x00) padded.
Thanks in advance,
IamHuM

Answer 1

Hi,
the following example extract the id, name values using LINQ To Xml and writes it to a memory stream using a binary writer and returns the result as a byte array:
internal static byte[] GetXmlAsByteArray()
var document = XDocument.Parse("<HeadersInfo>"
+ " <header><id>1</id><Name>H1</Name></header>"
+ " <header><id>2</id><Name>H2</Name></header>"
// additional testing
+ " <header><id>32767</id><Name>H1234</Name></header>"
+ " <header><id>305419896</id><Name>H56789</Name></header>"
+ "</HeadersInfo>");
const int NameLength = 5; // Max length for a name
byte[] zeroBytes = new byte[NameLength]; // Helper to fill name
using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
using (var writer = new BinaryWriter(ms))
// write each header
foreach (var header in document.Root.Elements("header"))
int id = (int)header.Element("id");
string name = (string)header.Element("Name");
byte[] nameBytes = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(name);
Console.WriteLine("id: {0}, Name: {1}", id, name);
// Write id
writer.Write(GetUIntBytes((uint)id));
// Write name NameLength (5) max, otherwise padded
if (nameBytes.Length > NameLength)
writer.Write(nameBytes, 0, NameLength);
else
writer.Write(nameBytes, 0, nameBytes.Length);
if (nameBytes.Length < NameLength)
writer.Write(zeroBytes, 0, NameLength - nameBytes.Length);
byte[] result = ms.ToArray();
// dump array
foreach (var value in result)
Console.Write("{0:X2} ", value);
Console.WriteLine();
return result;
public static byte[] GetUIntBytes(uint value)
if (BitConverter.IsLittleEndian)
// swap bytes
value = ((value & 0x00ff) << 24)
| ((value & 0xff00) << 8)
| ((value & 0x00ff0000) >> 8)
| ((value & 0xff000000) >> 24);
return BitConverter.GetBytes(value);
For a general purpose solution you should create a class and split the example into separate methods to extract the data and write the values (integers, strings).
Regards, Elmar