C# 0 The Complete Reference

PART I

C h a p t e r   1 4 :  

U s i n g   I / O  

365

PART IPART I

Notice that 

Stream

 defines methods that read and write data. However, not all streams 

will support both of these operations because it is possible to open read-only or write-only 

streams. Also, not all streams will support position requests via 

Seek( )

. To determine the 

capabilities of a stream, you will use one or more of 

Stream

’s properties. They are shown in 

Table 14-2. Also shown are the 

Length

 and 

Position

 properties, which contain the length of 

the stream and its current position.

The Byte Stream Classes

Several concrete byte streams are derived from 

Stream

. Those defined in the 

System.IO

namespace are shown here:

Stream Class

Description

BufferedStream

Wraps a byte stream and adds buffering. Buffering provides 

a per formance enhancement in many cases.

FileStream

A byte stream designed for file I/O.

Memor yStream

A byte stream that uses memor y for storage.

UnmanagedMemor yStream

A byte stream that uses unmanaged memor y for storage.

Several other concrete stream classes are also supported by the .NET framework, which 

provide support for compressed files, sockets, and pipes, among others. It is also possible to 

derive your own stream classes. However, for the vast majority of applications, the built-in 

streams will be sufficient.