CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#
MxLDevs
MxLDevs

Reputation: 19546

Converting byte array to string and printing out to console

public void parse_table(BinaryReader inFile)
{
    byte[] idstring = inFile.ReadBytes(6);
    Console.WriteLine(Convert.ToString(idstring));
}

It is a simple snippet: read the first 6 bytes of the file and convert that to a string.

However the console shows System.Byte[].

Maybe I'm using the wrong class for conversion. What should I be using? It will eventually be parsing filenames encoded in UTF-8, and I'm planning to use the same method to read all filenames.

Upvotes: 95

Views: 193415

Answers (6)

Tom Studee
Tom Studee

Reputation: 10452

It's actually:

Console.WriteLine(Encoding.Default.GetString(value));

or for UTF-8 specifically:

Console.WriteLine(Encoding.UTF8.GetString(value));

Upvotes: 105

Amir Touitou
Amir Touitou

Reputation: 3451

 byte[] bytes = { 1,2,3,4 };

 string stringByte= BitConverter.ToString(bytes);

 Console.WriteLine(stringByte);

Upvotes: 22

Derek
Derek

Reputation: 8783

For some fun with linq and string interpolation:

public string ByteArrayToString(byte[] bytes)
{
    if ( bytes == null ) return "null";
    string joinedBytes = string.Join(", ", bytes.Select(b => b.ToString()));
    return $"new byte[] {{ {joinedBytes} }}";
}

Test cases:

byte[] bytes = { 1, 2, 3, 4 };
ByteArrayToString( bytes ) .Dump();
ByteArrayToString(null).Dump();
ByteArrayToString(new byte[] {} ) .Dump();

Output:

new byte[] { 1, 2, 3, 4 }
null
new byte[] {  }

Upvotes: 1

Daniel Ryan
Daniel Ryan

Reputation: 7100

I've used this simple code in my codebase:

static public string ToReadableByteArray(byte[] bytes)
{
    return string.Join(", ", bytes);
}

To use:

Console.WriteLine(ToReadableByteArray(bytes));

Upvotes: 31

Jammer
Jammer

Reputation: 10206

This is just an updated version of Jesse Webbs code that doesn't append the unnecessary trailing , character.

public static string PrintBytes(this byte[] byteArray)
{
    var sb = new StringBuilder("new byte[] { ");
    for(var i = 0; i < byteArray.Length;i++)
    {
        var b = byteArray[i];
        sb.Append(b);
        if (i < byteArray.Length -1)
        {
            sb.Append(", ");
        }
    }
    sb.Append(" }");
    return sb.ToString();
}

The output from this method would be:

new byte[] { 48, ... 135, 31, 178, 7, 157 }

Upvotes: 15

Jesse Webb
Jesse Webb

Reputation: 45283

I was in a predicament where I had a signed byte array (sbyte[]) as input to a Test class and I wanted to replace it with a normal byte array (byte[]) for simplicity. I arrived here from a Google search but Tom's answer wasn't useful to me.

I wrote a helper method to print out the initializer of a given byte[]:

public void PrintByteArray(byte[] bytes)
{
    var sb = new StringBuilder("new byte[] { ");
    foreach (var b in bytes)
    {
        sb.Append(b + ", ");
    }
    sb.Append("}");
    Console.WriteLine(sb.ToString());
}

You can use it like this:

var signedBytes = new sbyte[] { 1, 2, 3, -1, -2, -3, 127, -128, 0, };
var unsignedBytes = UnsignedBytesFromSignedBytes(signedBytes);
PrintByteArray(unsignedBytes);
// output:
// new byte[] { 1, 2, 3, 255, 254, 253, 127, 128, 0, }

The ouput is valid C# which can then just be copied into your code.

And just for completeness, here is the UnsignedBytesFromSignedBytes method:

// http://stackoverflow.com/a/829994/346561
public static byte[] UnsignedBytesFromSignedBytes(sbyte[] signed)
{
    var unsigned = new byte[signed.Length];
    Buffer.BlockCopy(signed, 0, unsigned, 0, signed.Length);
    return unsigned;
}

Upvotes: 55

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