C# byte array to string, and vice-versa

Question

I have some C++ code that persists byte values into files via STL strings & text i/o, and am confused about how to do this in C#.

first I convert byte arrays to strings & store each as a row in a text file:

 StreamWriter F
 loop
 {
   byte[] B;       // array of byte values from 0-255 (but never LF,CR or EOF)
   string S = B;   // I'd like to do this assignment in C# (encoding? ugh.) (*)
   F.WriteLine(S); // and store the byte values into a text file
 }

later ... I'd like to reverse the steps and get back the original byte values:

  StreamReader F;   
  loop
  {
    string S = F.ReadLine();   // read that line back from the file
    byte[] B = S;              // I'd like to convert back to byte array (*)
  }

How do you do those assignments (*) ?

A little ambiguous... are you wanting to get a text representation of those bytes? IE: byte[] { 0, 1, 2, 3 } becomes "0 1 2 3"? — Corey
– Corey, Commented Aug 19, 2013 at 4:06

cuongle · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-19 03:54:54Z

11

class Encoding supports what you need, example below assumes that you need to convert string to byte[] using UTF8 and vice-versa:

string S = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(B);
byte[] B = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(S);

If you need to use other encodings, you can change easily:

Encoding.Unicode
Encoding.ASCII
...

edited Aug 19, 2013 at 3:54

answered Aug 19, 2013 at 3:47

cuongle

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1 Comment

TheBuzzSaw Over a year ago

It is also worth noting that System.String stores its data in UTF-16 as the "base format". You can convert that format to any other format in bytes using the proper Encoding as you demonstrated in your answer. :]

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:21:56Z

2

this one has been answered over and over

static byte[] GetBytes(string str)
{
    byte[] bytes = new byte[str.Length * sizeof(char)];
    System.Buffer.BlockCopy(str.ToCharArray(), 0, bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
    return bytes;
}

static string GetString(byte[] bytes)
{
    char[] chars = new char[bytes.Length / sizeof(char)];
    System.Buffer.BlockCopy(bytes, 0, chars, 0, bytes.Length);
    return new string(chars);
}

How do I get a consistent byte representation of strings in C# without manually specifying an encoding?

Read the first answer carefully, and the reasons why you would prefer this to the Encoding version.

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:21

CommunityBot

11 silver badge

answered Aug 19, 2013 at 3:50

BitParser

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Comments

Arun Kumar · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-08 11:41:10Z

You can use this code to Convert from string array to Byte and ViseVersa

Click the link to know more about C# byte array to string, and vice-versa

string strText = "SomeTestData";

            //CONVERT STRING TO BYTE ARRAY
            byte[] bytedata = ConvertStringToByte(strText);                              

            //VICE VERSA ** Byte[] To Text **
            if (bytedata  != null)
            {                    
                //BYTE ARRAY TO STRING
                string strPdfText = ConvertByteArrayToString(result);
            }


//Method to Convert Byte[] to string
private static string ConvertByteArrayToString(Byte[] ByteOutput)
{
            string StringOutput = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(ByteOutput);
            return StringOutput;
}


//Method to Convert String to Byte[]
public static byte[] ConvertStringToByte(string Input)
{
            return System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(Input);
}

I hope this helps you. Thanks.

Sharavan · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-03 07:04:16Z

    public Document FileToByteArray(string _FileName)
    {
        byte[] _Buffer = null;

        try
        {
            // Open file for reading
         FileStream _FileStream = new FileStream(_FileName, System.IO.FileMode.Open, System.IO.FileAccess.Read);
            // attach filestream to binary reader
           BinaryReader _BinaryReader = new BinaryReader(_FileStream);
            // get total byte length of the file
            long _TotalBytes = new FileInfo(_FileName).Length;
            // read entire file into buffer
            _Buffer = _BinaryReader.ReadBytes((Int32)_TotalBytes);
            // close file reader
            _FileStream.Close();
            _FileStream.Dispose();
            _BinaryReader.Close();
            Document1 = new Document();
            Document1.DocName = _FileName;
            Document1.DocContent = _Buffer;
            return Document1;
        }
        catch (Exception _Exception)
        {
            // Error
            Console.WriteLine("Exception caught in process: {0}", _Exception.ToString());
        }

        return Document1;
    }

    public void ByteArraytoFile(string _FileName, byte[] _Buffer)
    {
        if (_FileName != null && _FileName.Length > 0 && _Buffer != null)
        {
            if (!Directory.Exists(Path.GetDirectoryName(_FileName)))
                Directory.CreateDirectory(Path.GetDirectoryName(_FileName));

            FileStream file = File.Create(_FileName);

            file.Write(_Buffer, 0, _Buffer.Length);

            file.Close();
        }



    }

public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Document doc = new Document();
        doc.FileToByteArray("Path to your file");
        doc.Document1.ByteArraytoFile("path to ..to be created file", doc.Document1.DocContent);
    }
private Document _document;

public Document Document1
{
    get { return _document; }
    set { _document = value; }
}
public int DocId { get; set; }
public string DocName { get; set; }
public byte[] DocContent { get; set; }



}

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