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I have a hyperlink which has a image.

I need to read/load the image from that hyperlink and assign it to a byte array (byte[]) in C#.

Thanks.

Ben
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Sharpeye500
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4 Answers4

167

WebClient.DownloadData is the easiest way.

var webClient = new WebClient();
byte[] imageBytes = webClient.DownloadData("http://www.google.com/images/logos/ps_logo2.png");

Third party edit: Please note that WebClient is disposable, so you should use using:

string someUrl = "http://www.google.com/images/logos/ps_logo2.png"; 
using (var webClient = new WebClient()) { 
    byte[] imageBytes = webClient.DownloadData(someUrl);
}
Ben
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Josh
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    Thanks, am getting closer, not getting the image bytes, it will be much help if you throw some quick example. – Sharpeye500 Jan 05 '11 at 00:12
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    What are you getting then? You may want to grab a tool called Fiddler that will show you the request and response that might help you troubleshoot problems. It really doesn't get any simpler than WebClient.DownloadData. – Josh Jan 05 '11 at 00:13
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    Thanks , but i get "The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found." – Sharpeye500 Jan 05 '11 at 00:18
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    Then check out Fiddler and see if you can spot a difference between doing it in the browser and doing it from code. A 404 usually indicates you have the wrong URL. – Josh Jan 05 '11 at 00:20
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    Please note that WebClient is disposable, so you should a `using`, like so: `string someUrl = "http://www.google.com/images/logos/ps_logo2.png";` `using (var webClient = new WebClient()) {` ` byte[] imageBytes = webClient.DownloadData(someUrl);` ` // do something with imageBytes` `}` (Sorry for the messed up layout.) – Bondt Jan 16 '13 at 15:31
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    @Bondt Same code written as per you have, but getting still the same err `The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found` – PPB Jan 13 '16 at 14:26
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    @Sharpeye500 I am getting same err, have you got any solution on that? – PPB Jan 13 '16 at 14:27
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    @Josh i am using this URL - `http://img.youtube.com/vi/3p0PCs2jDvM/hqdefault.jpg` – PPB Jan 13 '16 at 14:37
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    Works like charm.. Thanks – Arjun Jun 22 '19 at 05:48
  • WebClient is now obsolete. See the HttpClient version in @Dunc's answer for modern alternative. – Peter David Carter Apr 22 '22 at 09:40
4

If you need an asynchronous version:

using (var client = new HttpClient())
{
    using (var response = await client.GetAsync(url))
    {
        byte[] imageBytes = await response.Content.ReadAsByteArrayAsync().ConfigureAwait(false);
     }
}
Dunc
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3

.NET 4.5 introduced WebClient.DownloadDataTaskAsync() for async usage.

Example:

using ( WebClient client = new WebClient() )
{
  byte[] bytes = await client.DownloadDataTaskAsync( "https://someimage.jpg" );
}
Christo Carstens
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0

Try following method:

public byte[] UdfGetByteFromImageURL(String StrImageUrl)
{
    using (var webClient = new WebClient()) 
    { 
            byte[] imageBytes = webClient.DownloadData(StrImageUrl);
        return imageBytes;
    }
}
AliNajafZadeh
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