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POparse content away from structure in a binary file
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copied!<p>Using C#, I need to read a packed binary file created using FORTRAN. The file is stored in an "Unformatted Sequential" format as described here (about half-way down the page in the "Unformatted Sequential Files" section):</p> <p><a href="http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/services/userguides/intel8/fc/f_ug1/pggfmsp.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/services/userguides/intel8/fc/f_ug1/pggfmsp.htm</a></p> <p>As you can see from the URL, the file is organized into "chunks" of 130 bytes or less and includes 2 length bytes (inserted by the FORTRAN compiler) surrounding each chunk.</p> <p>So, I need to find an efficient way to parse the actual file payload away from the compiler-inserted formatting.</p> <p>Once I've extracted the actual payload from the file, I'll then need to parse it up into its varying data types. That'll be the next exercise.</p> <p>My first thoughts are to slurp up the entire file into a byte array using <code>File.ReadAllBytes</code>. Then, just iterate through the bytes, skipping the formatting and transferring the actual data to a second byte array. </p> <p>In the end, that second byte array should contain the actual file contents minus all the formatting, which I'd then need to go back through to get what I need.</p> <p>As I'm fairly new to C#, I thought there might be a better, more accepted way of tackling this.</p> <p>Also, in case it's helpful, these files could be fairly large (say 30MB), though most will be much smaller...</p>

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