How to convert a Structure to byte array

So many times we need to use a structure to hold and organize some data. Then later we will need to send this structure to a client or another system via serial or ethernet. C# is not a very cast friendly! so you can't just cast the structure to a byte array like you can do in C or C++.

I have this strucure for example.

struct str_packet

{

    byte           key;

    byte    []    offset;

    byte          length;

    byte    []    data;

    short         Check_Sum;

};

 

 

 

 

 /*

    This Function will return a Byte Array that contains the data in the structure

*/ 

static byte [] StructureToByteArray(object obj)

{
    int len = Marshal.SizeOf(obj);
    byte [] arr = new byte[len];
    IntPtr ptr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(len);

    Marshal.StructureToPtr(obj, ptr, true);
    Marshal.Copy(ptr, arr, 0, len);
    Marshal.FreeHGlobal(ptr);
    return arr;
}

/*

This Function will set a pointer to the new data extracted from the Byte Array

*/
static void ByteArrayToStructure(byte [] bytearray, ref object obj)
{
    int len = Marshal.SizeOf(obj);
    IntPtr i = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(len);
    

    Marshal.Copy(bytearray,0, i,len);
    obj = Marshal.PtrToStructure(i, obj.GetType());
    Marshal.FreeHGlobal(i);
}