C#

        <br />
public string DecodeFile(string fullpath)<br />
        {<br />
            if (File.Exists(fullpath) == false)<br />
                throw new FileNotFoundException();<br />
<br />
            try<br />
            {<br />
                FileStream fStream = File.OpenRead(fullpath);<br />
                byte[] buffer = new byte[fStream.Length];<br />
                int bytesRead;<br />
                bytesRead = fStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);<br />
                fStream.Close();<br />
                fStream.Dispose();<br />
<br />
                if (bytesRead <= 0)<br />
                    throw new Exception("Empty file.");<br />
<br />
                Decoder decoder = Encoding.Default.GetDecoder();<br />
                char[] cBuffer = new char[buffer.Length];<br />
<br />
                int bytesConverted, charsConverted;<br />
                bool bCompleted;<br />
<br />
                decoder.Convert(buffer, 0, buffer.Length, cBuffer, 0, buffer.Length, false, out bytesConverted, out charsConverted, out bCompleted);<br />
                return new String(cBuffer, 0, bytesConverted);<br />
            }<br />
            catch (Exception ex)<br />
            {<br />
                throw new Exception(ex.Message);<br />
            }<br />
<br />
        }<br />

"Well, its not quite that simple. int.MaxValue is the most the string class
itself could handle, you are right, but since characters take up two bytes,
that many characters would go way beyond the max possible allocation. The
best theoretical high value is 2^31(or 2147483648) characters, since that is
exactly how many would fit in memory. Practially it'd be much, much smaller."

Dave Kreskowiak wrote:

Measuring the speed of an activity in FLOPS is like measuring the speed of a car in liters of Gas per hour.

when passing the information from method to method, an arraylist is not the most efficient taking up to 60,000 flops to pass the information therefore arrays are faster.