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Programming-Idioms

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  • C#

Idiom #275 Binary digits to byte array

From the string s consisting of 8n binary digit characters ('0' or '1'), build the equivalent array a of n bytes.
Each chunk of 8 binary digits (2 possible values per digit) is decoded into one byte (256 possible values).

using System;
using System.Linq;
var a = Enumerable.Range(0, s.Length / 8)
        .Select(i => s.Substring(i * 8, 8).ToCharArray())
        .Select(block => (byte)block.Aggregate(0, (acc, c) => (acc << 1) + (c - '0')))
        .ToArray();
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
unsigned char *a = calloc(strlen(s) / 8, 1);
for(int i = 0; i < strlen(s); ++i){
  a[i / 8] |= (s[i] == '1') << (7 - i % 8);
}

If s is not 8n characters long or contains characters orher than '0' and '1', correct behavior is not guaranteed.

New implementation...
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