Bandwidth on large text can be significantly improved with basic string compression. The System.IO.Compression namespace includes a rather easy to use compression algorithm. Here is an example implementation:
public static class StringCompression
{
public static byte[] ToGzip(string value)
{
var bytes = Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(value);
using (var inputStream = new MemoryStream(bytes))
using (var outputStream = new MemoryStream())
using (var stream = new GZipStream(outputStream, CompressionMode.Compress))
{
inputStream.CopyTo(stream);
// Use Close instead of Flush here:
stream.Close();
byte[] output = outputStream.ToArray();
return output;
}
}
public static string FromGzip(byte[] bytes)
{
using (var input = new MemoryStream(bytes))
using (var output = new MemoryStream())
using (var stream = new GZipStream(input, CompressionMode.Decompress))
{
stream.CopyTo(output);
stream.Flush();
return Encoding.Unicode.GetString(output.ToArray());
}
}
}
Here is a simple Unit Test demonstrating its use:
[TestMethod]
public void StringCompressionTest()
{
var original = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(@"C:\LargeFile.txt");
byte[] compressed = StringCompression.ToGzip(original);
string uncompressed = StringCompression.FromGzip(compressed);
Assert.AreEqual(original, uncompressed);
}
