Built-in class to serialize/deserialize a set of flags

Question

I need to store an array of flags in a string. I was looking at using BitArray, but noticed that there is no built-in method to write to/read from a char[] or int[] or something. I can write this code easily enough, but I'd prefer to use a built-in method if there is one out there.

So are there built-in .NET methods that handle this?

Answer 1

If your flags are represented as a defined enum, you can simply cast it to one of the integral types that enums support (int, long, etc). You can then deserialize the enum from its value representation using:

// define a Flags enumeration...
[Flags] enum MyEnum { First = 1, Second = 2, Third = 4, };


MyEnum originalValue = MyEnum.First | MyEnum.Second;
int storedValue = (int)originalValue;  

// value serialized into storage somewhere...

// later on ...
// deserialized however you need...
int restoredValue = ReadValueFromDataStore(); 
// convert back into a typesafe enum...
MyEnum recoveredValue = Enum.Parse( typeof(MyEnum), restoredValue );

Answer 2

The BitConverter class has some of this functionality.

Answer 3

The BitArray does support Int32[], you can use the constructor that accepts an int[] for initialization, and CopyTo(Array array, Int32 index). The current CopyTo implementation supports writing to Boolean[], Byte[] and Int32[] according to msdn.