Extract a Byte[] from an XElement with Linq to Xml

Question

I am saving some small images to Xml as a Byte[] via the following XElement construct..

XElement xe = new XElement("Images",
            from c in qry
            select new XElement("Image", new XAttribute("Date", c.Date),
              new XElement("Data", c.Bytes)));

the Bytes property is a Byte[], looking at the resulting element the contents of the array appear to be saved just peachy.

My problem is I can't seem to read this back simply. What is the best way to retrieve this element? Typecasting to a Byte[] appears to be not allowed, am I really going to have to read this as a string? Figure out what encoding to use and convert? Seems to me that given that XElement understood how to write the array, it should be able to read it as well.

Answer 1

I would think about Base64 encoding the byte array. It should be fairly easy to encode/decode this from/to a byte array.

Answer 2

This was very helpful, thank you. For a coding sample see:

http://www.nowan.hu/main.aspx?content=9cff1555-26ca-4e6a-910b-6a73463e22b2