sprintf in C#?

Is there something similar to sprintf() in C#?

I would for instance like to convert an integer to a 2-byte byte-array.

Something like:

int number = 17;
byte[] s = sprintf("%2c", number);

From stackoverflow

• string s = string.Format("{0:00}", number)
  

  The first 0 means "the first argument" (i.e. number); the 00 after the colon is the format specifier (2 numeric digits).

  However, note that .NET strings are UTF-16, so a 2-character string is 4 bytes, not 2

  (edit: question changed from string to byte[])

  To get the bytes, use Encoding:

  byte[] raw = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(s);
  

  (obviously different encodings may give different results; UTF8 will give 2 bytes for this data)

  Actually, a shorter version of the first bit is:

  string s = number.ToString("00");
  

  But the string.Format version is more flexible.

• EDIT: I'm assuming that you want to convert the value of an integer to a byte array and not the value converted to a string first and then to a byte array (check marc's answer for the latter.)

  To convert an int to a byte array you can use:

  byte[] array = BitConverter.GetBytes(17);
  

  but that will give you an array of 4 bytes and not 2 (since an int is 32 bits.) To get an array of 2 bytes you should use:

  byte[] array = BitConverter.GetBytes((short)17);
  

  If you just want to convert the value 17 to two characters then use:

  string result = string.Format("{0:00}", 17);
  

  But as marc pointed out the result will consume 4 bytes since each character in .NET is 2 bytes (UTF-16) (including the two bytes that hold the string length it will be 6 bytes).

• It turned out, that what I really wanted was this:

  short number = 17;
  System.IO.BinaryWriter writer = new System.IO.BinaryWriter(stream);
  writer.Write(number);
  writer.Flush();
  

  The key here is the Write-function of the BinaryWriter class. It has 18 overloads, converting different formats to a byte array which it writes to the stream. In my case I have to make sure the number I want to write is kept in a short datatype, this will make the Write function write 2 bytes.

  Y Low : If you are using a stream then your solution works very well, but for simple conversion you can use the BitConverter class (check my answer.)

  Markus Johansson : Yes, I agree. I stumbled upon that aswell..