Memory Stream or Vector?

[MasterGberry]

I have been doing a lot of reading online about memory stream types, and I am trying to avoid using the gcnew MemoryStream() from the System header in this program.

Here is an example of what I need to be able to use it for.

var reader = new BinaryReader(new MemoryStream(data, false)); // create variable

I have this std::vector<char> called "data" and I am trying to manipulate it like a memory stream in this example. Maybe its easier to just read the vector in chunks, not sure.

The second example creates a whole new memory stream which is used for writing out.

var outStream = new MemoryStream();
var writer = new BinaryWriter(outStream);

What I am asking here is three things.

1) Is it easier to just easier to manipulate the vector around and create a new vector and copy the things in after I am done with them?
2) If I should use a memory stream, then how should I do it?
3) If the vector idea should be used instead, then how would I read multiple chars into an unsigned long int at the same time? (4 bytes)