Why am i getting Stream as System.IO.UnmanagedMemoryStream?

Question

Hi

I have a part of code like this

        Assembly myAssembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
        string[] names = myAssembly.GetManifestResourceNames();
        foreach (string file in names)
        {
            if (file.EndsWith(".dtd"))
            {
                // attach to stream to the resource in the manifest
                  dtdStream = myAssembly.GetManifestResourceStream(file);
                  MessageBox.Show(dtdStream.ToString());
            }                
        }

i have all the dtd files under my Resources folder.Which has build type Embedded Resource.
Now when i Debug the code i am getting a message box showing System.IO.UnmanagedMemoryStream

But i want a Managed MemoryStream?
What is wrong in my code?
Thanks...

Answer 1

Resources get compiled as part of the assembly (EXE or DLL), which means they gets loaded into unmanaged memory when the OS starts the process. This is the reason why any stream returned by GetManifestResourceStream must therefore be unmanaged (of type UnmanagedMemoryStream).

What's the problem with this, anyway? The interface of MemoryStream and UnmanagedMemoryStream are basically identical, and it's only the (hidden) functionality that differs, which shouldn't be of any consequence to you.

Answer 2

This is a "by design" behavior and provides a faster access of memory.

Reference: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.reflection.emit.modulebuilder.definemanifestresource(VS.85).aspx