Reinterpret.Net

Reinterpret.Net 2.x supports >=.NETFramework2.0 and .NET Core

Reinterpret.Net 3.x supports Netstandard 2.0 and NETFramework4.6

Reinterpret.Net is a .NET library that allows users to take advantage of an API like the C++-style reinterpret casts in .NET. It's built using a collection of generic extension methods meaning integration is simple.

It supports casting from bytes to primitives or strings and from primitives and strings to bytes and even supports primitive arrays.

Features

• Netstandard2.0
• .NETFramework >= 2.0 (version 2.x only)
• Conversion from byte[] to primitives (Ex. Int32, Float)
• Conversion from primitives to byte[]
• Conversion from byte[] to string
• Conversion from string to byte[]
• Conversion from byte[] to primitive arrays
• Conversion from primitive arrays to byte[]

How to Use

Reinterpret.Net is designed for ease-of-use. It is implemented as generic extension methods for the byte[] Type, primitive arrays and strings so reinterpreting is simple.

Converting from a byte[] to an int value (4 bytes)

byte[] bytes = GetBytes();
int intValue = bytes.Reinterpret<int>();

Converting from a byte[] to a string (default unicode encoding)

byte[] bytes = GetBytes();
string result = bytes.Reinterpret();

Converting from a byte[] to a primitive array

byte[] bytes = GetBytes();
int[] result = bytes.ReinterpretToArray<int>();

The extension method API allows you to perform operations that feel like LINQ Letting you reinterpret from an int32 array to a UTF16 string if you so choose.

int32[] values = GetValues()
string result = values
    .Reinterpret() //to bytes
    .ReinterpretToString(); //to string

High Performance (UNSAFE)

This section orginally described a key feature to the library. That feature has since been removed due to Issue #1 and will not be returning anytime soon.

Performance Comparisions

The unsafe operations use to make Reinterpret.Net highly competitive in array and string conversions. These performance benchmarks have been removed due to Issue #1. They are now approximately as fast as the .NET Encoding class or BlockCopy.

Performance differs between framework versions. BitConverter in older versions of .NETFramework is slower and in the .NET Core Corefx repo it's implemented in a significantly different way. All these effect the comparisions but Reinterpret.NET is usually still faster, especially the dangerous no allocation verion, with only BlockCopy being competitive due its unmanaged implementation. However for some unknown reason which doesn't appear to be IL related, could be GC or JIT, the performance of reinterpret suffers on the .NET3.5 and .NET2.0 platforms.

.NET Core and >=.NETFramework4.0

.NETFramework2.0 - .NETFramework3.5

Setup

To compile or open Reinterpret.Net project you'll first need a couple of things:

• Visual Studio 2017
• ilasm.exe (For compiling .il files)

Builds

NuGet: Reinterpret.Net

Myget:

Tests

	Linux Debug	Windows .NET Debug
master	TODO