How to convert a byte array to a hex string in Java?

Question

I have a byte array filled with hex numbers and printing it the easy way is pretty pointless because there are many unprintable elements. What I need is the exact hexcode in

Answer 1

A Guava solution, for completeness:

import com.google.common.io.BaseEncoding;
...
byte[] bytes = "Hello world".getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
final String hex = BaseEncoding.base16().lowerCase().encode(bytes);

Now hex is "48656c6c6f20776f726c64".

Answer 2

I usually use the following method for debuf statement, but i don't know if it is the best way of doing it or not

private static String digits = "0123456789abcdef";

public static String toHex(byte[] data){
    StringBuffer buf = new StringBuffer();
    for (int i = 0; i != data.length; i++)
    {
        int v = data[i] & 0xff;
        buf.append(digits.charAt(v >> 4));
        buf.append(digits.charAt(v & 0xf));
    }
    return buf.toString();
}

Answer 3

Here is a java.util.Base64-like implementation(partial), isn't it pretty?

public class Base16/*a.k.a. Hex*/ {
    public static class Encoder{
        private static char[] toLowerHex={'0','1','2','3','4','5','6','7','8','9','a','b','c','d','e','f'};
        private static char[] toUpperHex={'0','1','2','3','4','5','6','7','8','9','A','B','C','D','E','F'};
        private boolean upper;
        public Encoder(boolean upper) {
            this.upper=upper;
        }
        public String encode(byte[] data){
            char[] value=new char[data.length*2];
            char[] toHex=upper?toUpperHex:toLowerHex;
            for(int i=0,j=0;i<data.length;i++){
                int octet=data[i]&0xFF;
                value[j++]=toHex[octet>>4];
                value[j++]=toHex[octet&0xF];
            }
            return new String(value);
        }
        static final Encoder LOWER=new Encoder(false);
        static final Encoder UPPER=new Encoder(true);
    }
    public static Encoder getEncoder(){
        return Encoder.LOWER;
    }
    public static Encoder getUpperEncoder(){
        return Encoder.UPPER;
    }
    //...
}

Answer 4

private static String bytesToHexString(byte[] bytes, int length) {
        if (bytes == null || length == 0) return null;

        StringBuilder ret = new StringBuilder(2*length);

        for (int i = 0 ; i < length ; i++) {
            int b;

            b = 0x0f & (bytes[i] >> 4);
            ret.append("0123456789abcdef".charAt(b));

            b = 0x0f & bytes[i];
            ret.append("0123456789abcdef".charAt(b));
        }

        return ret.toString();
    }

Answer 5

If you're looking for a byte array exactly like this for python, I have converted this Java implementation into python.

class ByteArray:

@classmethod
def char(cls, args=[]):
    cls.hexArray = "0123456789ABCDEF".encode('utf-16')
    j = 0
    length = (cls.hexArray)

    if j < length:
        v = j & 0xFF
        hexChars = [None, None]
        hexChars[j * 2] = str( cls.hexArray) + str(v)
        hexChars[j * 2 + 1] = str(cls.hexArray) + str(v) + str(0x0F)
        # Use if you want...
        #hexChars.pop()

    return str(hexChars)

array = ByteArray()
print array.char(args=[])

Answer 6

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

This answer the same as this one.