WPF - Byte Array to Hex View (similar to Notepad++ HEX-Editor plugin)

Question

I am using an ItemsControl to display a List<byte> in hex. The ItemsPanelTemplate is a UniformGrid with a fixed number of columns:

<ItemsControl 
    HorizontalAlignment="Left"
    VerticalAlignment="Top"
    ItemsSource="{Binding}">
    <ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
        <ItemsPanelTemplate>
            <UniformGrid Columns="16"/>
        </ItemsPanelTemplate>
    </ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
    <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
        <DataTemplate>
            <TextBlock Text="{Binding StringFormat='\{0:X2\}'}" Margin="5,5,5,0"/>
        </DataTemplate>
    </ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>

I'd like to prefix each row with an 'Address' column, just like you'd see with the Notepad++ 'HEX-Editor' plugin.
That is, since I have 16 columns, each row should be prefixed something like this:

0000 [00 01 02 .... 0F]
0010 [10 11 12 .... 1F]
0020 [20 21 22 .... 2F]
...

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Meh.. I finally just went ahead and implemented an IValueConverter to convert the byte array into a nicely formatted hex string:

/// <summary>
/// Converts a byte array to a multi-row hex string containing 
/// byte offset indices as a prefix for each row.
/// </summary>
/// <example>
/// <![CDATA[
/// 0000:   13 31 DC 81 95 2C 92 E5
/// 0008:   CE 14 F6 C7 2E CA 8F 13
/// 0010:   11 2E AB 80 2E 19 63 D1
/// 0018:   0D D6 88 2D 95 BF 03 FE
/// 0020:   6F 8F 2C 8A D8 A9 60 B4
/// ]]>
/// </example>
[ValueConversion(typeof(byte[]), typeof(String))]
public class ByteArrayToIndexedHexStringConverter : IValueConverter {

    /// <summary>
    /// Converts a byte array to a multi-row hex string.  
    /// Each row is prefixed with the starting byte offset and contains
    /// a fixed number of bytes.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="value">The byte array to convert.</param>
    /// <param name="targetType"></param>
    /// <param name="parameter">A string, parsable to an integer, indicating
    /// how many bytes per row.  Typically 8 or 16.</param>
    /// <param name="culture"></param>
    /// <returns>A string that looks similar to the HexEdit plugin for Notepad++.</returns>
    public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture) {

        if (value == null) return null;

        if (!(value is byte[])) {
            throw new ArgumentException("'value' must be a byte array.");
        }

        int numBytesPerRow;
        if ((parameter == null)
            || !(parameter is string)
            || !(int.TryParse((string)parameter, out numBytesPerRow))) {

            throw new ArgumentException("'parameter' must be a string parsable to an integer (numBytesPerRow).");
        }

        var hexSplit = BitConverter.ToString((byte[])value)
            .Replace('-', ' ')
            .Trim()
            .SplitIntoChunks(numBytesPerRow * 3)
            .ToList();

        int byteAddress = 0;
        var sb = new StringBuilder();

        for (int i = 0; i < hexSplit.Count; i++) {
            sb.AppendLine(byteAddress.ToString("X4") + ":\t" + hexSplit[i]);
            byteAddress += numBytesPerRow;
        }

        return sb.ToString();
    }

    public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture) {
        throw new NotSupportedException();
    }
}

I used Jon's SplitIntoChunks implementation.