How to convert string "AD-A6-0D-1F" to byte[]?

[Ping]

Hi, All,
We can use BitConverter.ToString(byte[]) to a string,
but how to get the byte[] from a string like "AD-A6-0D-1F"?

 

[Maqsood Ahmed]

Hello,
For ASCII:
System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(string); //returns byte array.
For Unicode:
System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(string); //returns bytes array
(little-endian byte format)

Cheers

Maqsood Ahmed [MCP,C#]
Kolachi Advanced Technologies
http://www.kolachi.net

 

[Ping]

See the following code:

Byte[] bs={0xAD,0xA6,0x0D,0x1F};
string str=BitConverter.ToString(bs) ; //str="AD-A6-0D-1F"
byte[] bs2=System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(str);
//bs2[]={0x41,0x44,0x2D,0x41,0x36,0x2D,0x30,0x44,0x2D,0x31,0x46}

bs2!=bs


I think that required to write a routing like:

//------------------------------------------------
public static byte[] ByteConvert(string s)
{
byte[] rt=new byte[(s.Length+1)/3];
for(int j=0,i=0;i<s.Length;i+=3)
{
rt[j]=Convert.ToByte(s.Substring(i,2),16);// .ToByte(s);
j++;
}
return rt;
}

//------------------------------------------------

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

For ASCII:
System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(string); //returns byte array.
For Unicode:
System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(string); //returns bytes array
(little-endian byte format)

Cheers

Those will certainly convert strings to bytes, but not in the way that
the OP wants.

However, you don't need to get the substring of the string for each
pair of hex digits. Here's some code I wrote a while ago to parse hex
strings. It *doesn't* take account of the '-' between each pair of hex
digits, but could easily be modified to do so.

static int ParseHexDigit(char c)
{
if (c >= '0' && c <= '9')
{
return c-'0';
}
if (c >= 'a' && c <= 'f')
{
return c-'a'+10;
}
if (c >= 'A' && c <= 'F')
{
return c-'A'+10;
}
throw new ArgumentException ("Invalid hex character");
}

public static string ParseHex(string hex)
{
char[] result = new char[hex.Length/2];
int hexIndex=0;
for (int i=0; i < result.Length; i++)
{
result = (char)(ParseHexDigit(hex[hexIndex++])*16+
ParseHexDigit(hex[hexIndex++]));

}
return new string (result);
}

 

[Guest]

or you can try Int32.Parse( string, NumberStyles.HexNumber ), then convert
int to byte[]. that too however doesn't support the '-', so you have to
strip them out.

For ASCII:
System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(string); //returns byte array.
For Unicode:
System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(string); //returns bytes array
(little-endian byte format)

Cheers

Those will certainly convert strings to bytes, but not in the way that
the OP wants.

However, you don't need to get the substring of the string for each
pair of hex digits. Here's some code I wrote a while ago to parse hex
strings. It *doesn't* take account of the '-' between each pair of hex
digits, but could easily be modified to do so.

static int ParseHexDigit(char c)
{
if (c >= '0' && c <= '9')
{
return c-'0';
}
if (c >= 'a' && c <= 'f')
{
return c-'a'+10;
}
if (c >= 'A' && c <= 'F')
{
return c-'A'+10;
}
throw new ArgumentException ("Invalid hex character");
}

public static string ParseHex(string hex)
{
char[] result = new char[hex.Length/2];
int hexIndex=0;
for (int i=0; i < result.Length; i++)
{
result = (char)(ParseHexDigit(hex[hexIndex++])*16+
ParseHexDigit(hex[hexIndex++]));

}
return new string (result);
}