This caption is taken directly from an article i found here. The final result of this post is the following code:
/// <summary> /// Reads data from a stream until the end is reached. The /// data is returned as a byte array. An IOException is /// thrown if any of the underlying IO calls fail. /// </summary> /// <param name="stream">The stream to read data from</param> /// <param name="initialLength">The initial buffer length</param> public static byte[] ReadFully (Stream stream, int initialLength) { // If we've been passed an unhelpful initial length, just // use 32K. if (initialLength < 1) { initialLength = 32768; } byte[] buffer = new byte[initialLength]; int read=0; int chunk; while ( (chunk = stream.Read(buffer, read, buffer.Length-read)) > 0) { read += chunk; // If we've reached the end of our buffer, check to see if there's // any more information if (read == buffer.Length) { int nextByte = stream.ReadByte(); // End of stream? If so, we're done if (nextByte==-1) { return buffer; } // Nope. Resize the buffer, put in the byte we've just // read, and continue byte[] newBuffer = new byte[buffer.Length*2]; Array.Copy(buffer, newBuffer, buffer.Length); newBuffer[read]=(byte)nextByte; buffer = newBuffer; read++; } } // Buffer is now too big. Shrink it. byte[] ret = new byte[read]; Array.Copy(buffer, ret, read); return ret; }