How can I split (copy) a Stream in .NET?

Question

Does anyone know where I can find a Stream splitter implementation?

I\'m looking to take a Stream, and obtain two separate streams that can be independently read a

Answer 1

I do not think you will be able to find a generic implementation to do just that. A Stream is rather abstract, you don't know where the bytes are coming from. For instance you don't know if it will support seeking; and you don't know the relative cost of operations. (The Stream might be an abstraction of reading data from a remote server, or even off a backup tape !).

If you are able to have a MemoryStream and store the contents once, you can create two separate streams using the same buffer; and they will behave as independent Streams but only use the memory once.

Otherwise, I think you are best off by creating a wrapper class that stores the bytes read from one stream, until they are also read by the second stream. That would give you the desired forward-only behaviour - but in worst case, you might risk storing all of the bytes in memory, if the second Stream is not read until the first Stream has completed reading all content.