How to convert a byte array (MD5 hash) into a string (36 chars)?

Question

I\'ve got a byte array that was created using a hash function. I would like to convert this array into a string. So far so good, it will give me hexadecimal string.

Answer 1

System.Text.Encoding enc = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII;
string myString = enc.GetString(myByteArray);

You can play with what encoding you need:

System.Text.ASCIIEncoding,
System.Text.UnicodeEncoding,
System.Text.UTF7Encoding,
System.Text.UTF8Encoding

To match the requrements [a-z][0-9] you can use it:

Byte[] bytes = new Byte[] { 200, 180, 34 };
string result = String.Join("a", bytes.Select(x => x.ToString()).ToArray());

You will have string representation of bytes with char separator. To convert back you will need to split, and convert the string[] to byte[] using the same approach with .Select().