BinaryReader.ReadChar Method

Definition

Reads the next character from the current stream and advances the current position of the stream in accordance with the Encoding used and the specific character being read from the stream.

public virtual char ReadChar ();

Returns

A character read from the current stream.

Exceptions

The end of the stream is reached.

The stream is closed.

An I/O error occurred.

A surrogate character was read.

Examples

The following code example shows how to read and write data using memory as a backing store.

using System;
using System.IO;

class BinaryRW
{
    static void Main()
    {
        int i = 0;
        char[] invalidPathChars = Path.InvalidPathChars;
        MemoryStream memStream = new MemoryStream();
        BinaryWriter binWriter = new BinaryWriter(memStream);

        // Write to memory.
        binWriter.Write("Invalid file path characters are: ");
        for(i = 0; i < invalidPathChars.Length; i++)
        {
            binWriter.Write(invalidPathChars[i]);
        }

        // Create the reader using the same MemoryStream
        // as used with the writer.
        BinaryReader binReader = new BinaryReader(memStream);

        // Set Position to the beginning of the stream.
        memStream.Position = 0;

        // Read the data from memory and write it to the console.
        Console.Write(binReader.ReadString());
        char[] memoryData =
            new char[memStream.Length - memStream.Position];
        for(i = 0; i < memoryData.Length; i++)
        {
            memoryData[i] = binReader.ReadChar();
        }
        Console.WriteLine(memoryData);
    }
}

Remarks

If the ReadChar method attempts to read a surrogate character in the stream an exception will be raised and the position in the stream will advance. The position is restored to the original location before ReadChar was called if the stream is seekable; however, if the stream is unseekable, the position will not be corrected. If surrogate characters can be expected in the stream, use the ReadChars method instead.

Because of data formatting conflicts, using this method with the following encodings is not recommended:

  • UTF-7

  • ISO-2022-JP

  • ISCII

For a list of common I/O tasks, see Common I/O Tasks.

Applies to

Product Versions
.NET Core 1.0, Core 1.1, Core 2.0, Core 2.1, Core 2.2, Core 3.0, Core 3.1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
.NET Framework 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 4.5.1, 4.5.2, 4.6, 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.7.1, 4.7.2, 4.8, 4.8.1
.NET Standard 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.1
UWP 10.0

See also