Fastest way of reading and writing binary

Question

I\'m currently optimizing an application, one of the operations that is done very often is reading and writing binary. I need 2 types of functions:

Set(byte[] ta         


        

Answer 1

Using Marc Gravell's Set1 to Set4 and the Set5 below, I get the following numbers on my machine:

Set1: 197ms
Set2: 102ms
Set3: 604ms
Set4: 68ms
Set5: 55ms <==== pointer magic ;-p

Code:

unsafe static void Set5(byte[] target, int index, int value)
{
    fixed (byte* p = &target[index])
    {
        *((int*)p) = value;                
    }
}

---

Of course, it gets much faster when the byte array isn't pinned on each iteration but only once:

Set6: 10ms (little endian)
Set7: 85ms (big endian)

Code:

if (!BitConverter.IsLittleEndian)
{
    throw new NotSupportedException();
}

watch = Stopwatch.StartNew();
fixed (byte* p = buffer)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < LOOP; i++)
    {
        *((int*)(p + INDEX)) = VALUE;
    }
}
watch.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("Set6: " + watch.ElapsedMilliseconds + "ms");

watch = Stopwatch.StartNew();
fixed (byte* p = buffer)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < LOOP; i++)
    {
        *((int*)(p + INDEX)) = System.Net.IPAddress.HostToNetworkOrder(VALUE);
    }
}
watch.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("Set7: " + watch.ElapsedMilliseconds + "ms");