How can I code a set of numbers to a file so that the file has a minimal size?

Question

I have to code some algorithm's result in a file. A Result is a list of blocks, each one defined by 5 numbers: 3 ints and 2 floats. The simplest way to code it in a file is of course plain text, for example like this:

12 56 81 0.34 1.67 
124 11 76 0.75 6.11 
...

It is also the worst way taking the file size into account.

How could I reduce the file size? If these were all integers, I would just convert them to bytes and simply write them as bytes to file and it would reduce the size a bit. But the floats are more problematic. Any ideas? In C# .NET

Answer 1

You can always compress the file using a zip library like SharpZipLib.

Answer 2

Binary variable length would be the most compact (i.e. only store 11 bits for numbers that will only need 11 bits), but this rapidly becomes complex because you need to encode both type and length.

How about storing in text, but compressing (e.g. GZipStream), this will remove almost all (compression isn't perfect) without complex encoding.

Something like:

using (var fs = new FileStream(filename, FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Write))
using (var gz = new GZipStream(fs, CompressionMode.Compress))
using (var writer = new StreamWriter(gz)) {
  foreach (var num in numbers) {
    writer.Write(num);
    writer.Write(' ');
  }
}