Convert a binary string representation to a byte array

How do you convert a string such as "01110100011001010111001101110100" to a byte array then used File.WriteAllBytes such that the exact binary string is the binary of the file. In this case it would be the the text "test".

In case you don't have this LINQ fetish, so common lately, you can try the normal way

string input ....
int numOfBytes = input.Length / 8;
byte[] bytes = new byte[numOfBytes];
for(int i = 0; i < numOfBytes; ++i)
{
    bytes[i] = Convert.ToByte(input.Substring(8 * i, 8), 2);
}
File.WriteAllBytes(fileName, bytes);

LINQ is great but there must be some limits.

You could start by splitting the string into a sequence of 8-character strings, then convert those strings to bytes, and eventually write the bytes to a file

string input = "01110100011001010111001101110100";
var bytesAsStrings =
    input.Select((c, i) => new { Char = c, Index = i })
         .GroupBy(x => x.Index / 8)
         .Select(g => new string(g.Select(x => x.Char).ToArray()));
byte[] bytes = bytesAsStrings.Select(s => Convert.ToByte(s, 2)).ToArray();
File.WriteAllBytes(fileName, bytes);

EDIT: here's another way to split the string into 8-character chunks, perhaps a bit simpler :

int nBytes = (int)Math.Ceiling(input.Length / 8m);
var bytesAsStrings =
    Enumerable.Range(0, nBytes)
              .Select(i => input.Substring(8 * i, Math.Min(8, input.Length - 8 * i)));

If you know that the length of the string is a multiple of 8, you can make it even simpler :

int nBytes = input.Length / 8;
var bytesAsStrings =
    Enumerable.Range(0, nBytes)
              .Select(i => input.Substring(8 * i, 8));

A bit late, but here's my 2 cents:

var binaryStr = "01110100011001010111001101110100";

var byteArray = Enumerable.Range(0, int.MaxValue/8)
                          .Select(i => i*8)
                          .TakeWhile(i => i < binaryStr.Length)
                          .Select(i => binaryStr.Substring(i, 8))
                          .Select(s => Convert.ToByte(s, 2))
                          .ToArray();
File.WriteAllBytes("C:\temp\test.txt", byteArray);