How to convert string to base64 byte array, would this be valid?

Question

I'm trying to write a function that converts a string to a base64 byte array. I've tried with this approach:

public byte[] stringToBase64ByteArray(String input) {     byte[] ret = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(input);     string s = Convert.ToBase64String(input);     ret = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(s);     return ret; } 

Would this function produce a valid result (provided that the string is in unicode)? Thanks!

Answer 1

You can use:

From byte[] to string:

byte[] array = somebytearray;

string result = Convert.ToBase64String(array);

From string to byte[]:

array = Convert.FromBase64String(result);

Answer 2

Looks okay, although the approach is strange. But use Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes() to convert the base64 string to byte[]. Base64 encoding only contains ASCII characters. Using Unicode gets you an extra 0 byte for each character.