[C#] Binding image to memorystream, how does it not create a memory leak?

[sathenzar]

Maybe the method I am using is one of bad practice. I'm going to assume there is a better way of doing it. I have an image bound to a byte array (that will be designated by a byte array in a database but that is outside of the scope of this topic). The thing is it creates a memory stream but I can not close the memory stream and properly dispose of it because the image will no longer show since the memorystream will become unreadable/unusable.

public sealed class ImageIconConverter : IValueConverter
    {
        public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
        {
            byte[] buffer = (value as byte[]);
            if (buffer == null)
                return null;
            MemoryStream mStream = new MemoryStream(buffer);
            BitmapImage bi = new BitmapImage();
            bi.BeginInit();
            bi.StreamSource = mStream;
            bi.EndInit();

            /*mStream.Close();
            mStream.Dispose();
            mStream = null;*/ <---------------- can not use these lines, if I do the image will not show because the memory stream will become unusable.
            return bi;
        }

        public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
        {
            BitmapImage bi = (value as BitmapImage);
            byte[] buffer = new byte[bi.StreamSource.Position - 1];
            bi.StreamSource.Read(buffer, 0, (int)bi.StreamSource.Position - 1);
            return buffer;
        }
    }

Any ideas as to what I could do better?

[firey]

what are you trying to show? If I were you, I would save the image, then load it directly as opposed to a stream.

[sathenzar]

nevermind I forgot to use the cache option. For those who stumble across this problem set the cache option to OnLoad :)

[sathenzar]

The reason I'm not saving the images is because they are all stored in the databases as byte arrays and I don't want to use HD space.

[firey]

The reason I'm not saving the images is because they are all stored in the databases as byte arrays and I don't want to use HD space.

That's fair, though a few kb's isn't that much. Glad you got it working, and is a good tip if I need to do this.

[Andre S. Veteran]

It's not the cause of the problem, but in general you should avoid calling Dispose() manually: that's what the using statement is for. Here:

using (MemoryStream mStream = new MemoryStream(buffer)) {
  BitmapImage bi = new BitmapImage();
  bi.BeginInit();
  bi.StreamSource = mStream;
  bi.EndInit();
  return bi;
}[/CODE]

It's not simply because it looks cleaner, it's mainly because you're guaranteed Dispose() will be called even if an exception causes the method to exit early.

[sathenzar]

Thanks for the replies everyone :) good tip Dr_Asik!