FileStream StreamWriter StreamReader BinaryReader

FileStream vs/differences StreamWriter?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4963667/filestream-vs-differences-streamwriter

What is different between FileStream and StreamWriter in dotnet?

A FileStream is a Stream. Like all Streams it only deals with byte[] data.

A StreamWriter is a TextWriter, a Stream-decorator. A TextWriter converts or encodes Text data like string or char to byte[] and then writes it to the linked Stream.

What context are you supposed to use it? What is their advantage and disadvantage?

You use a bare FileStream when you have byte[] data. You add a StreamWriter when you want to write text.

Is it possible to combine these two into one?

Yes. You always need a Stream to create a StreamWriter. System.IO.File.CreateText("path") will create them in combination and then you only have to Dispose() the outer writer.

StreamReader vs BinaryReader?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10353913/streamreader-vs-binaryreader

Both StreamReader and BinaryReader can be used to get data from binary file

Well, StreamReader can be used to get text data from a binary representation of text.

BinaryReader can be used to get arbitrary binary data. If some of that binary data happens to be a representation of text, that's fine - but it doesn't have to be.

Bottom line:

• If the entirety of your data is a straightforward binary encoding of text data, use StreamReader.
• If you've fundamentally got binary data which may happen to have some portions in text, use BinaryReader

So for example, you wouldn't try to read a JPEG file with StreamReader.