In Java, how do I convert a byte array to a string of hex digits while keeping leading zeros? [duplicate]

Question

Check out Hex.encodeHexString from Apache Commons Codec.

import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Hex;

String hex = Hex.encodeHexString(bytes);

You can use the one below. I tested this with leading zero bytes and with initial negative bytes as well

public static String toHex(byte[] bytes) {
    BigInteger bi = new BigInteger(1, bytes);
    return String.format("%0" + (bytes.length << 1) + "X", bi);
}

If you want lowercase hex digits, use "x" in the format String.

A simple approach would be to check how many digits are output by Integer.toHexString() and add a leading zero to each byte if needed. Something like this:

public static String toHexString(byte[] bytes) {
    StringBuilder hexString = new StringBuilder();

    for (int i = 0; i < bytes.length; i++) {
        String hex = Integer.toHexString(0xFF & bytes[i]);
        if (hex.length() == 1) {
            hexString.append('0');
        }
        hexString.append(hex);
    }

    return hexString.toString();
}

The method javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter.printHexBinary(), part of the Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB), was a convenient way to convert a byte[] to a hex string. The DatatypeConverter class also included many other useful data-manipulation methods.

In Java 8 and earlier, JAXB was part of the Java standard library. It was deprecated with Java 9 and removed with Java 11, as part of an effort to move all Java EE packages into their own libraries. It's a long story. Now, javax.xml.bind doesn't exist, and if you want to use JAXB, which contains DatatypeConverter, you'll need to install the JAXB API and JAXB Runtime from Maven.

Example usage:

byte bytes[] = {(byte)0, (byte)0, (byte)134, (byte)0, (byte)61};
String hex = javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter.printHexBinary(bytes);

Will result in:

000086003D

I liked Steve's submissions, but he could have done without a couple of variables and saved several lines in the process.

public static String toHexString(byte[] bytes) {
    char[] hexArray = {'0','1','2','3','4','5','6','7','8','9','A','B','C','D','E','F'};
    char[] hexChars = new char[bytes.length * 2];
    int v;
    for ( int j = 0; j < bytes.length; j++ ) {
        v = bytes[j] & 0xFF;
        hexChars[j*2] = hexArray[v/16];
        hexChars[j*2 + 1] = hexArray[v%16];
    }
    return new String(hexChars);
}

What I like about this is that it's easy to see exactly what it's doing (instead of relying on some magic BigInteger black box conversion) and you're also free from having to worry about corner cases like leading-zeroes and stuff. This routine takes every 4-bit nibble and turns it into a hex char. And it's using a table lookup, so it's probably fast. It could probably be faster if you replace v/16 and v%16 with bitwise shifts and AND's, but I'm too lazy to test it right now.

I found Integer.toHexString to be a little slow. If you are converting many bytes, you may want to consider building an array of Strings containing "00".."FF" and use the integer as the index. I.e.

hexString.append(hexArray[0xFF & messageDigest[i]]);

This is faster and ensures the correct length. Just requires the array of strings:

String[] hexArray = {
"00","01","02","03","04","05","06","07","08","09","0A","0B","0C","0D","0E","0F",
"10","11","12","13","14","15","16","17","18","19","1A","1B","1C","1D","1E","1F",
"20","21","22","23","24","25","26","27","28","29","2A","2B","2C","2D","2E","2F",
"30","31","32","33","34","35","36","37","38","39","3A","3B","3C","3D","3E","3F",
"40","41","42","43","44","45","46","47","48","49","4A","4B","4C","4D","4E","4F",
"50","51","52","53","54","55","56","57","58","59","5A","5B","5C","5D","5E","5F",
"60","61","62","63","64","65","66","67","68","69","6A","6B","6C","6D","6E","6F",
"70","71","72","73","74","75","76","77","78","79","7A","7B","7C","7D","7E","7F",
"80","81","82","83","84","85","86","87","88","89","8A","8B","8C","8D","8E","8F",
"90","91","92","93","94","95","96","97","98","99","9A","9B","9C","9D","9E","9F",
"A0","A1","A2","A3","A4","A5","A6","A7","A8","A9","AA","AB","AC","AD","AE","AF",
"B0","B1","B2","B3","B4","B5","B6","B7","B8","B9","BA","BB","BC","BD","BE","BF",
"C0","C1","C2","C3","C4","C5","C6","C7","C8","C9","CA","CB","CC","CD","CE","CF",
"D0","D1","D2","D3","D4","D5","D6","D7","D8","D9","DA","DB","DC","DD","DE","DF",
"E0","E1","E2","E3","E4","E5","E6","E7","E8","E9","EA","EB","EC","ED","EE","EF",
"F0","F1","F2","F3","F4","F5","F6","F7","F8","F9","FA","FB","FC","FD","FE","FF"};

I've been looking for the same thing ... some good ideas here, but I ran a few micro benchmarks. I found the following to be the fastest (modified from Ayman's above and about 2x as fast, and about 50% faster than Steve's just above this one):

public static String hash(String text, String algorithm)
        throws NoSuchAlgorithmException {
    byte[] hash = MessageDigest.getInstance(algorithm).digest(text.getBytes());
    return new BigInteger(1, hash).toString(16);
}

Edit: Oops - missed that this is essentially the same as kgiannakakis's and so may strip off a leading 0. Still, modifying this to the following, it's still the fastest:

public static String hash(String text, String algorithm)
        throws NoSuchAlgorithmException {
    byte[] hash = MessageDigest.getInstance(algorithm).digest(text.getBytes());
    BigInteger bi = new BigInteger(1, hash);
    String result = bi.toString(16);
    if (result.length() % 2 != 0) {
        return "0" + result;
    }
    return result;
}