How to read Build-Action: Resource items

I have done this for gathering images from the resources where the build action is Resource from an external application. However we have to have a reference to System.Windows.Resources and use the Application.GetResourceStream()

Basically we use the following method.

    private static Stream GetResourceStream(string resourcePath)
    {
        try
        {

            string s = System.IO.Packaging.PackUriHelper.UriSchemePack;
            var uri = new Uri(resourcePath);
            StreamResourceInfo sri = System.Windows.Application.GetResourceStream(uri);
            return sri.Stream;
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            return null;
        }
    }

Now this returns a stream which can then by converted to a byte[] array or used to build other object types.

This could be called like.

            //set variables
            string myAssembly = "Test.Assembly";
            string resourceItem = "resources/myimage.png";

            //get the stream
            using (var bSteam = GetResourceStream(string.Format("pack://application:,,,/{0};component//{1}", myAssembly, resourceItem)))
            {
                //covert the stream to a memory stream and return the byte array
                using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
                {
                    bSteam.CopyTo(ms);
                    return ms.ToArray();
                }
            }

Like I said it does use the Application.GetResourceStream(). If you want to avoid using this method this answer may not be suitable.

Cheers,