Unfortunately there are issues with all of the posts (as already pointed out in comments). There is a correct answer in this other question
I needed a solution so for myself and wrote the following code. This is also more flexible in using enumerable and multiple search replace terms.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
public class ByteTools
{
static void ByteReplaceTests()
{
var examples = new(string source, string search, string replace)[]
{
("bababanana", "babanana", "apple"),
("hello guys", "hello", "hello world"),
("apple", "peach", "pear"),
("aaaa", "a", "abc"),
("pear", "pear", ""),
("good morning world", "morning", "morning"),
("ababab", "ab", "ababab"),
("ababab", "abab", "ab"),
("", "aa", "bb"),
};
int i = 0;
foreach (var (source, search, replace) in examples)
{
var stringReplaceResults = source.Replace(search, replace);
var sourceByte = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(source);
var searchByte = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(search);
var replaceByte = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(replace);
//converts string values to bytes, does the replace, then converts back to string
var byteReplaceResults = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(
ByteReplace(sourceByte, (searchByte, replaceByte)).ToArray());
Console.WriteLine($"{i}: {source}, {search}, {replace}");
Console.WriteLine($" String.Replace() => {stringReplaceResults}");
Console.WriteLine($" BytesReplace() => {byteReplaceResults}");
i++;
}
}
static IEnumerable<byte> ByteReplace(IEnumerable<byte> source, params (byte[] search, byte[] replace)[] replacements)
{
if (source == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(source));
if (replacements == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(replacements));
if (replacements.Any(r => r.search == null || r.search.Length == 0))
throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException(nameof(replacements), "Search parameter cannot be null or empty");
if (replacements.Any(r => r.replace == null))
throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException(nameof(replacements), "Replace parameter cannot be null");
var maxMatchSize = replacements.Select(r => r.search.Length).Max();
var bufferSize = maxMatchSize * 2;
var buffer = new byte[bufferSize];
int bufferStart = 0;
int bufferPosition = 0;
byte[] nextBytes()
{
foreach ((byte[] search, byte[] replace) in replacements)
{
if (ByteStartsWith(buffer, bufferStart, bufferPosition - bufferStart, search))
{
bufferStart += search.Length;
return replace;
}
}
var returnBytes = new byte[] { buffer[bufferStart] };
bufferStart++;
return returnBytes;
}
foreach (var dataByte in source)
{
buffer[bufferPosition] = dataByte;
bufferPosition++;
if (bufferPosition - bufferStart >= maxMatchSize)
{
foreach (var resultByte in nextBytes())
yield return resultByte;
}
if (bufferPosition == bufferSize - 1)
{
Buffer.BlockCopy(buffer, bufferStart, buffer, 0, bufferPosition - bufferStart);
bufferPosition -= bufferStart;
bufferStart = 0;
}
}
while (bufferStart < bufferPosition)
{
foreach (var resultByte in nextBytes())
yield return resultByte;
}
}
static bool ByteStartsWith(byte[] data, int dataOffset, int dataLength, byte[] startsWith)
{
if (data == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(data));
if (startsWith == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(startsWith));
if (dataLength < startsWith.Length)
return false;
for (int i = 0; i < startsWith.Length; i++)
{
if (data[i + dataOffset] != startsWith[i])
return false;
}
return true;
}
}
