C# binary literals

Is there a way to write binary literals in C#, like prefixing hexadecimal with 0x? 0b doesn't work.

If not, what is an easy way to do it? Some kind of string conversion?

While not possible using a Literal, maybe a [BitConverter][1] can also be a solution?


[1]:

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You can always create quasi-literals, constants which contain the value you are after:

const int b001 = 1;
const int b010 = 2;
const int b011 = 3;
// etc ...
Debug.Assert((b001 | b010) == b011);

If you use them often then you can wrap them in a static class for re-use.

However, slightliy off-topic, if you have any semantics associated with the bits (known at compile time) I would suggest using an Enum instead:

enum Flags
{
First = 0,
Second = 1,
Third = 2,
SecondAndThird = 3
}
// later ...
Debug.Assert((Flags.Second | Flags.Third) == Flags.SecondAndThird);

Though the string parsing solution is the most popular, I don't like it, because parsing string can be a great performance hit in some situations.

When there is needed a kind of a bitfield or binary mask, I'd rather write it like

> long bitMask = 1011001;

And later

> int bit5 = BitField.GetBit(bitMask, 5);

Or

> bool flag5 = BitField.GetFlag(bitMask, 5);`

Where BitField class is

public static class BitField
{
public static int GetBit(int bitField, int index)
{
return (bitField / (int)Math.Pow(10, index)) % 10;
}

public static bool GetFlag(int bitField, int index)
{
return GetBit(bitField, index) == 1;
}
}

string sTable="static class BinaryTable\r\n{";
string stemp = "";
for (int i = 0; i < 256; i++)
{
stemp = System.Convert.ToString(i, 2);
while(stemp.Length<8) stemp = "0" + stemp;
sTable += "\tconst char nb" + stemp + "=" + i.ToString() + ";\r\n";
}
sTable += "}";
Clipboard.Clear();
Clipboard.SetText ( sTable);
MessageBox.Show(sTable);

Using this, for 8bit binary, I use this to make a static class and it puts it into the clipboard.. Then it gets pasted into the project and added to the Using section, so anything with nb001010 is taken out of a table, at least static, but still...
I use C# for a lot of PIC graphics coding and use 0b101010 a lot in Hi-Tech C

--sample from code outpt--

static class BinaryTable
{ const char nb00000000=0;
const char nb00000001=1;
const char nb00000010=2;
const char nb00000011=3;
const char nb00000100=4;
//etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc,
}

:-)
NEAL

Only integer and hex directly, I'm afraid (ECMA 334v4):

> **9.4.4.2 Integer literals** Integer literals are used to write values of
> types int, uint, long, and ulong.
> Integer literals have two possible
> forms: decimal and hexadecimal.

To parse, you can use:

int i = Convert.ToInt32("01101101", 2);