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How do you convert Byte Array to Hexadecimal String, and vice-versa?

Anonymous User 2330 29 May 2013

Hi Everyone!

This is probably a common question over the Internet, but I couldn't find an answer that neatly explains how you can convert a byte array to a hexadecimal string, and vice-versa.

Thanks in advance.

Ask by Anonymous User

Updated 29 May 2013

1 Answers

AVADHESH PATEL 29 May 2013

Hi John!

Either:

public static string ByteArrayToString(byte[] ba)
{
  StringBuilder hex = new StringBuilder(ba.Length * 2);
  foreach (byte b in ba)
    hex.AppendFormat("{0:x2}", b);
  return hex.ToString();
}

or:

public static string ByteArrayToString(byte[] ba)
{
  string hex = BitConverter.ToString(ba);
  return hex.Replace("-","");
}

There are even more variants of doing it, for example here.

The reverse conversion would go like this:

public static byte[] StringToByteArray(String hex)
{
  int NumberChars = hex.Length;
  byte[] bytes = new byte[NumberChars / 2];
  for (int i = 0; i < NumberChars; i += 2)
    bytes[i / 2] = Convert.ToByte(hex.Substring(i, 2), 16);
  return bytes;
}

Edit: you can improve performance for long strings by using a single pass parser, like so:

public static byte[] StringToByteArray(String hex)
{
  int NumberChars = hex.Length/2;
  byte[] bytes = new byte[NumberChars];
  StringReader sr = new StringReader(hex);
  for (int i = 0; i < NumberChars; i++)
    bytes[i] = Convert.ToByte(new string(new char[2]{(char)sr.Read(), (char)sr.Read()}), 16);
  sr.Dispose();
  return bytes;
}

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