/// <summary>
/// Creates a byte array from the hexadecimal string. Each two characters are combined
/// to create one byte. First two hexadecimal characters become first byte in returned array.
/// Non-hexadecimal characters are ignored.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="hexString">string to convert to byte array</param>
/// <param name="discarded">number of characters in string ignored</param>
/// <returns>byte array, in the same left-to-right order as the hexString</returns>
public static byte[] GetBytes(string hexString, out int discarded)
{
discarded = 0;
// XML Reader/Writer is highly optimized for BinHex conversions
// use instead of byte/character replacement for performance on
// arrays larger than a few dozen elements
hexString = "<node>" + hexString + "</node>";
System.Xml.XmlTextReader tr = new System.Xml.XmlTextReader(
hexString,
System.Xml.XmlNodeType.Element,
null);
tr.Read();
System.IO.MemoryStream ms = new System.IO.MemoryStream();
int bufLen = 1024;
int cap = 0;
byte[] buf = new byte[bufLen];
do
{
cap = tr.ReadBinHex(buf, 0, bufLen);
ms.Write(buf, 0, cap);
} while (cap == bufLen);
return ms.ToArray();
}
