C#.NET: Convert Icon to byte[] and back again

Question

How does one convert between System.Drawing.Icon type and byte[]? I'm looking for something simple that can (hopefully) work in .NET2.

Answer 1

You go via a MemoryStream, basically:

public static byte[] IconToBytes(Icon icon)
{
    using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
    {
        icon.Save(ms);
        return ms.ToArray();
    }
}

public static Icon BytesToIcon(byte[] bytes)
{
    using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(bytes))
    {
        return new Icon(ms);
    }
}

(Historical note: I wasn't sure whether or not it was safe to dispose of the stream passed to the constructor. It isn't safe to do so for Bitmap, for example... that holds on to the stream and may read from it later. Apparently it's okay for Icon though. I wish MSDN made this clearer...)

Answer 2

See: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/csharpgeneral/thread/1551fd3b-02b6-4479-852a-dfea4b610c35

Ex (there are multiple ways)

private byte[] GetBytes( Icon icon )
{
    MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
    icon.Save( ms );
    return ms.ToArray();
}

And:

Bitmap bmpIcon = icon.ToBitmap();

using (System.IO.MemoryStream ms = new System.IO.MemoryStream())
{
    bmpIcon.Save(ms, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Bmp);        
    return ms.ToArray();
}

Answer 3

... And back again

public static Icon IconFromBytes(byte[] bytes) {
     using(var ms = new MemoryStream(bytes)) {
          return new Icon(ms);
     }
}

The Icon class reads from the stream as soon as it's constructed. No harm in closing MS.