How do you convert a byte array to a hexadecimal s

Question

How can you convert a byte array to a hexadecimal string, and vice versa?

Answer 1

If you want more flexibility than BitConverter, but don't want those clunky 1990s-style explicit loops, then you can do:

String.Join(String.Empty, Array.ConvertAll(bytes, x => x.ToString("X2")));

Or, if you're using .NET 4.0:

String.Concat(Array.ConvertAll(bytes, x => x.ToString("X2")));

(The latter from a comment on the original post.)

Answer 2

You can use the BitConverter.ToString method:

byte[] bytes = {0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256}
Console.WriteLine( BitConverter.ToString(bytes));

Output:

00-01-02-04-08-10-20-40-80-FF

More information: BitConverter.ToString Method (Byte[])

Answer 3

I just encountered the very same problem today, and I came across this code:

private static string ByteArrayToHex(byte[] barray)
{
    char[] c = new char[barray.Length * 2];
    byte b;
    for (int i = 0; i < barray.Length; ++i)
    {
        b = ((byte)(barray[i] >> 4));
        c[i * 2] = (char)(b > 9 ? b + 0x37 : b + 0x30);
        b = ((byte)(barray[i] & 0xF));
        c[i * 2 + 1] = (char)(b > 9 ? b + 0x37 : b + 0x30);
    }
    return new string(c);
}

Source: Forum post byte[] Array to Hex String (see the post by PZahra). I modified the code a little to remove the 0x prefix.

I did some performance testing to the code and it was almost eight times faster than using BitConverter.ToString() (the fastest according to patridge's post).

Answer 4

Extension methods (disclaimer: completely untested code, BTW...):

public static class ByteExtensions
{
    public static string ToHexString(this byte[] ba)
    {
        StringBuilder hex = new StringBuilder(ba.Length * 2);

        foreach (byte b in ba)
        {
            hex.AppendFormat("{0:x2}", b);
        }
        return hex.ToString();
    }
}

etc.. Use either of Tomalak's three solutions (with the last one being an extension method on a string).

Answer 5

Not optimized for speed, but more LINQy than most answers (.NET 4.0):

<Extension()>
Public Function FromHexToByteArray(hex As String) As Byte()
    hex = If(hex, String.Empty)
    If hex.Length Mod 2 = 1 Then hex = "0" & hex
    Return Enumerable.Range(0, hex.Length \ 2).Select(Function(i) Convert.ToByte(hex.Substring(i * 2, 2), 16)).ToArray
End Function

<Extension()>
Public Function ToHexString(bytes As IEnumerable(Of Byte)) As String
    Return String.Concat(bytes.Select(Function(b) b.ToString("X2")))
End Function

Answer 6

I'll enter this bit fiddling competition as I have an answer that also uses bit-fiddling to decode hexadecimals. Note that using character arrays may be even faster as calling StringBuilder methods will take time as well.

public static String ToHex (byte[] data)
{
    int dataLength = data.Length;
    // pre-create the stringbuilder using the length of the data * 2, precisely enough
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder (dataLength * 2);
    for (int i = 0; i < dataLength; i++) {
        int b = data [i];

        // check using calculation over bits to see if first tuple is a letter
        // isLetter is zero if it is a digit, 1 if it is a letter
        int isLetter = (b >> 7) & ((b >> 6) | (b >> 5)) & 1;

        // calculate the code using a multiplication to make up the difference between
        // a digit character and an alphanumerical character
        int code = '0' + ((b >> 4) & 0xF) + isLetter * ('A' - '9' - 1);
        // now append the result, after casting the code point to a character
        sb.Append ((Char)code);

        // do the same with the lower (less significant) tuple
        isLetter = (b >> 3) & ((b >> 2) | (b >> 1)) & 1;
        code = '0' + (b & 0xF) + isLetter * ('A' - '9' - 1);
        sb.Append ((Char)code);
    }
    return sb.ToString ();
}

public static byte[] FromHex (String hex)
{

    // pre-create the array
    int resultLength = hex.Length / 2;
    byte[] result = new byte[resultLength];
    // set validity = 0 (0 = valid, anything else is not valid)
    int validity = 0;
    int c, isLetter, value, validDigitStruct, validDigit, validLetterStruct, validLetter;
    for (int i = 0, hexOffset = 0; i < resultLength; i++, hexOffset += 2) {
        c = hex [hexOffset];

        // check using calculation over bits to see if first char is a letter
        // isLetter is zero if it is a digit, 1 if it is a letter (upper & lowercase)
        isLetter = (c >> 6) & 1;

        // calculate the tuple value using a multiplication to make up the difference between
        // a digit character and an alphanumerical character
        // minus 1 for the fact that the letters are not zero based
        value = ((c & 0xF) + isLetter * (-1 + 10)) << 4;

        // check validity of all the other bits
        validity |= c >> 7; // changed to >>, maybe not OK, use UInt?

        validDigitStruct = (c & 0x30) ^ 0x30;
        validDigit = ((c & 0x8) >> 3) * (c & 0x6);
        validity |= (isLetter ^ 1) * (validDigitStruct | validDigit);

        validLetterStruct = c & 0x18;
        validLetter = (((c - 1) & 0x4) >> 2) * ((c - 1) & 0x2);
        validity |= isLetter * (validLetterStruct | validLetter);

        // do the same with the lower (less significant) tuple
        c = hex [hexOffset + 1];
        isLetter = (c >> 6) & 1;
        value ^= (c & 0xF) + isLetter * (-1 + 10);
        result [i] = (byte)value;

        // check validity of all the other bits
        validity |= c >> 7; // changed to >>, maybe not OK, use UInt?

        validDigitStruct = (c & 0x30) ^ 0x30;
        validDigit = ((c & 0x8) >> 3) * (c & 0x6);
        validity |= (isLetter ^ 1) * (validDigitStruct | validDigit);

        validLetterStruct = c & 0x18;
        validLetter = (((c - 1) & 0x4) >> 2) * ((c - 1) & 0x2);
        validity |= isLetter * (validLetterStruct | validLetter);
    }

    if (validity != 0) {
        throw new ArgumentException ("Hexadecimal encoding incorrect for input " + hex);
    }

    return result;
}

Converted from Java code.