How do I generate a stream from a string?

public static Stream GenerateStreamFromString(string s)
{
    var stream = new MemoryStream();
    var writer = new StreamWriter(stream);
    writer.Write(s);
    writer.Flush();
    stream.Position = 0;
    return stream;
}

Don't forget to use Using:

using (var stream = GenerateStreamFromString("a,b \n c,d"))
{
    // ... Do stuff to stream
}

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About the StreamWriter not being disposed. StreamWriter is just a wrapper around the base stream, and doesn't use any resources that need to be disposed. The Dispose method will close the underlying Stream that StreamWriter is writing to. In this case that is the MemoryStream we want to return.

In .NET 4.5 there is now an overload for StreamWriter that keeps the underlying stream open after the writer is disposed of, but this code does the same thing and works with other versions of .NET too.

See Is there any way to close a StreamWriter without closing its BaseStream?

Another solution:

public static MemoryStream GenerateStreamFromString(string value)
{
    return new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(value ?? ""));
}

Add this to a static string utility class:

public static Stream ToStream(this string str)
{
    MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();
    StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(stream);
    writer.Write(str);
    writer.Flush();
    stream.Position = 0;
    return stream;
}

This adds an extension function so you can simply:

using (var stringStream = "My string".ToStream())
{
    // use stringStream
}