Stream Class (System.IO)

Streams involve three fundamental operations:

• You can read from streams. Reading is the transfer of data from a stream into a data structure, such as an array of bytes.

• You can write to streams. Writing is the transfer of data from a data structure into a stream.

• Streams can support seeking. Seeking refers to querying and modifying the current position within a stream. Seek capability depends on the kind of backing store a stream has. For example, network streams have no unified concept of a current position, and therefore typically do not support seeking.

Stream is the abstract base class of all streams. A stream is an abstraction of a sequence of bytes, such as a file, an input/output device, an inter-process communication pipe, or a TCP/IP socket. The Stream class and its derived classes provide a generic view of these different types of input and output, and isolate the programmer from the specific details of the operating system and the underlying devices.

Depending on the underlying data source or repository, streams might support only some of these capabilities. You can query a stream for its capabilities by using the CanRead, CanWrite, and CanSeek properties of the Stream class.

The Read and Write methods read and write data in a variety of formats. For streams that support seeking, use the Seek and SetLength methods and the Position and Length properties to query and modify the current position and length of a stream.

Starting with the .NET Framework 4.5 RC, the Stream class includes async methods to simplify asynchronous operations. An async method contains Async in its name, such as ReadAsync, WriteAsync, CopyToAsync, and FlushAsync. These methods enable you to perform resource-intensive I/O operations without blocking the main thread. This performance consideration is particularly important in a Windows Metro style app or desktop app where a time-consuming stream operation can block the UI thread and make your app appear as if it is not working. The async methods are used in conjunction with the async and await keywords in Visual Basic and C#.

When used in a Metro style app, Stream includes two extension methods: AsInputStream and AsOutputStream. These methods convert a Stream object to a stream in the Windows Runtime. You can also convert a stream in the Windows Runtime to a Stream object by using the AsStreamForRead and AsStreamForWrite methods.

Some stream implementations perform local buffering of the underlying data to improve performance. For such streams, you can use the Flush or FlushAsync method to clear any internal buffers and ensure that all data has been written to the underlying data source or repository.

Disposing a Stream object flushes any buffered data, and essentially calls the Flush method for you. Dispose also releases operating system resources such as file handles, network connections, or memory used for any internal buffering. The BufferedStream class provides the capability of wrapping a buffered stream around another stream in order to improve read and write performance.

If you need a stream with no backing store (also known as a bit bucket), use the Null field to retrieve an instance of a stream that is designed for this purpose.

When you implement a derived class of Stream, you must provide implementations for the Read and Write methods. The asynchronous methods ReadAsync, WriteAsync, and CopyToAsync use the synchronous methods Read and Write in their implementations. Therefore, your implementations of Read and Write will work correctly with the asynchronous methods. The default implementations of ReadByte and WriteByte create a new single-element byte array, and then call your implementations of Read and Write. When you derive from Stream, we recommend that you override these methods to access your internal buffer, if you have one, for substantially better performance. You must also provide implementations of CanRead, CanSeek, CanWrite, Flush, Length, Position, Seek, and SetLength.

Do not override the Close method, instead, put all the Stream cleanup logic in the Dispose method. For more information, see Implementing a Dispose Method.

The following example demonstrates how to use two FileStream objects to asynchronously copy the files from one directory to another directory. The FileStream class derives from the Stream class. Notice that the Click event handler for the Button control is marked with the async modifier because it calls an asynchronous method

Imports System.IO

Class MainWindow

    Private Async Sub Button_Click(sender As Object, e As RoutedEventArgs)
        Dim StartDirectory As String = "c:\Users\exampleuser\start"
        Dim EndDirectory As String = "c:\Users\exampleuser\end"

        For Each filename As String In Directory.EnumerateFiles(StartDirectory)
            Using SourceStream As FileStream = File.Open(filename, FileMode.Open)
                Using DestinationStream As FileStream = File.Create(EndDirectory + filename.Substring(filename.LastIndexOf("\"c)))
                    Await SourceStream.CopyToAsync(DestinationStream)
                End Using

            End Using
        Next
    End Sub

End Class

using System;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Windows;
using System.IO;

namespace WpfApplication
{
    public partial class MainWindow : Window
    {
        public MainWindow()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private async void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            string StartDirectory = @"c:\Users\exampleuser\start";
            string EndDirectory = @"c:\Users\exampleuser\end";

            foreach (string filename in Directory.EnumerateFiles(StartDirectory))
            {
                using (FileStream SourceStream = File.Open(filename, FileMode.Open))
                {
                    using (FileStream DestinationStream = File.Create(EndDirectory + filename.Substring(filename.LastIndexOf('\\'))))
                    {
                        await SourceStream.CopyToAsync(DestinationStream);
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

.NET Framework

.NET Framework Client Profile

Portable Class Library

Windows 8 Release Preview, Windows Server 2012, Windows 7, Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 SP2, Windows Server 2008 R2 (Server Core Role supported with SP1 or later; Itanium not supported)

The .NET Framework does not support all versions of every platform. For a list of the supported versions, see .NET Framework System Requirements.

Reference

Other Resources