Use .NET BigInteger as bit field

Question

I would like to use System.Numeric.BigInteger as bit field. I have flags in range 1 - 2^255. Is there any performance reason (memory or speed) to write custom container or I can just use BigInteger for this?

BigInteger is immutable, so any change needs to allocate a new one. But unless you're using this in a tight loop or with large values (much larger than 256 bits), it shouldn't matter. — CodesInChaos
– CodesInChaos, Commented Feb 27, 2014 at 10:03
There is the BitArray class, designed for this. Using List<byte> is pretty easy as well. If you're willing to sacrifice memory, List<bool> is another alternative. — CodesInChaos
– CodesInChaos, Commented Feb 27, 2014 at 10:04

slugster · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-27 10:45:54Z

7

You can use BitArray, which is tailored for that kind of storage, and after if you need to store, you can store it like a sequence of chars, or use some other serialization option.

edited Feb 27, 2014 at 10:45

slugster

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answered Feb 27, 2014 at 10:04

Tigran

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2 Comments

CodesInChaos Over a year ago

That class is a bit weird. For some reason it doesn't implement IList, and it wasn't modified to add generic interfaces either. I'd expect it to implement IList<bool>.

Tigran Over a year ago

@CodesInChaos: probably the idea of it is to process stream of bit values. in CLR when ms wants to manifest such usecase of a type, usually stops on implementing it from IEnumerable, or at maximum, from ICollection.

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