Decompression of string not working

Hi Guys,

I'm facing the following problem while compressing and decompressing a string. To make it understand better, I'm including the code in step by step manner.

1. I've a JSON string something like the following one

[{"FirstName":"First Name 0","LastName":"Last Name 0","Department":{"DepartmentID":0,"DepartmentName":"Department Name 0"}},{"FirstName":"First Name 1","LastName":"Last Name 1","Department":{"DepartmentID":1,"DepartmentName":"Department Name 1"}},{"FirstName":"First Name 2","LastName":"Last Name 2","Department":{"DepartmentID":2,"DepartmentName":"Department Name 2"}},{"FirstName":"First Name 3","LastName":"Last Name 3","Department":{"DepartmentID":3,"DepartmentName":"Department Name 3"}},{"FirstName":"First Name 4","LastName":"Last Name 4","Department":{"DepartmentID":4,"DepartmentName":"Department Name 4"}},{"FirstName":"First Name 5","LastName":"Last Name 5","Department":{"DepartmentID":5,"DepartmentName":"Department Name 5"}}]

2. I'm using ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib to compress the string using the following routine

public static string CompressString(string inflatedString)
        {
            string result = string.Empty;
            byte[] buffer = new byte[4096];
            byte[] stringButes = new System.Text.UTF8Encoding().GetBytes(inflatedString);
            try
            {
                using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
                {
                    using (ZipOutputStream zs = new ZipOutputStream(ms))
                    {
                        zs.SetLevel (9);
                        ZipEntry entry = new ZipEntry("Compress.txt");
                        zs.PutNextEntry(entry);
                        using (MemoryStream msSource = new MemoryStream(stringButes))
                        {
                            StreamUtils.Copy(msSource, zs, buffer);
                        }
                    }
                    byte[] compressedStringBytes = ms.ToArray();
                    
                    StringBuilder compressedStringBuilder = new StringBuilder(compressedStringBytes.Length);
                    foreach (byte charItem in compressedStringBytes)
                    {
                        compressedStringBuilder.Append((char)charItem);
                    }

                    result = compressedStringBuilder.ToString();
                }
                
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
            }
            return result;
        }

3. And using the following routine for decompression

public static string DeCompressString(string compressedString)
        {
            string result = string.Empty;
            StringBuilder defaltedString = new StringBuilder();
            byte[] compressedStringBytes = new byte[compressedString.Length];
            for (int foo = 0; foo < compressedString.Length; foo++)
            {
                compressedStringBytes[foo] = (byte)compressedString[foo];
            }

            byte[] data = null;
            try
            {
                using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(compressedStringBytes))
                {
                    using (ZipInputStream zs = new ZipInputStream(ms))
                    {
                        ZipEntry entry = null;
                        while((entry = zs.GetNextEntry()) != null)
                        {
                            data = new byte[entry.Size];
                            using (MemoryStream msDest = new MemoryStream(data))
                            {
                                using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(msDest))
                                {
                                    if (zs.Read(data, 0, data.Length) > 0)
                                    {
                                        writer.Write(data);
                                    }
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                    result = new System.Text.UTF8Encoding().GetString(data, 0, data.Length);                    

                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
            }
            return result;
        }

Now the problem is when the above stated JSON string gets compressed (using the above stated routine)and using the same compressed string when I decompress (using the above stated routine) I'm getting the following decompressed string, which clearly are not same..

System.Byte[]:"First Name 0","LastName":"Last Name 0","Department":{"DepartmentID":0,"DepartmentName":"Department Name 0"}},{"FirstName":"First Name 1","LastName":"Last Name 1","Department":{"DepartmentID":1,"DepartmentName":"Department Name 1"}},{"FirstName":"First Name 2","LastName":"Last Name 2","Department":{"DepartmentID":2,"DepartmentName":"Department Name 2"}},{"FirstName":"First Name 3","LastName":"Last Name 3","Department":{"DepartmentID":3,"DepartmentName":"Department Name 3"}},{"FirstName":"First Name 4","LastName":"Last Name 4","Department":{"DepartmentID":4,"DepartmentName":"Department Name 4"}},{"FirstName":"First Name 5","LastName":"Last Name 5","Department":{"DepartmentID":5,"DepartmentName":"Department Name 5"}}]

You can see the first few characters of the string is missing and a new System.Byte[] is included instead.

I'm constantly trying to figure it out, but till not without any luck..
It will be great, if someone puts some light, whether Im missing something or not...

Tags: C#, Compression, Decompression