How do I type literal binary in VB.NET?

Question

How do you type binary literals in VB.NET?

&HFF          // literal Hex -- OK
&b11111111    // literal Binary -- how do I do this?

Answer 1

You could define it as string and then parse it:

myBin = Convert.ToInt32("1010101010", 2)

Answer 2

As of VB.NET 15 there is now support for binary literals:

Dim mask As Integer = &B00101010

You can also include underscores as digit separators to make the number more readable without changing the value:

Dim mask As Integer = &B0010_1010

Answer 3

You don't.

VB.NET supports decimal (without prefix), octal (with &O prefix), and hexadecimal (with &H prefix) integer literals directly.

Answer 4

Expanding on codymanix's answer... You could wrap this in an Extension on Strings, and add type checking...
something along the lines of:

<Extension> Public Function ParseBinary(target As String) As Integer  
    If Not RegEx.IsMatch(target, "^[01]+$") Then Throw New Exception("Invalid binary characters.")  

    Return Convert.ToInt32(target, 2)  
End Function

This allows then, anywhere you have a string of binary value, say "100101100101", you can do:

Dim val As Integer = "100101100101".ParseBinary()  

Note that to use <Extension>, you must import System.Runtime.CompilerServices, and be running on Framework 3.5 or later.