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

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

Is that a faulty solution? (android java)

    // Create MD5 Hash
    MessageDigest digest = java.security.MessageDigest.getInstance("MD5");
    digest.update(s.getBytes());
    byte[] md5sum = digest.digest();
    BigInteger bigInt = new BigInteger(1, md5sum);
    String stringMD5 = bigInt.toString(16);
    // Fill to 32 chars
    stringMD5 = String.format("%32s", stringMD5).replace(' ', '0');
    return stringMD5;

So basically it replaces spaces with 0.

Answer 3

I would use something like this for fixed length, like hashes:

md5sum = String.format("%032x", new BigInteger(1, md.digest()));

The 0 in the mask does the padding...

Answer 4

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();
}

Answer 5

This solution is a little older school, and should be memory efficient.

public static String toHexString(byte bytes[]) {
    if (bytes == null) {
        return null;
    }

    StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
    for (int iter = 0; iter < bytes.length; iter++) {
        byte high = (byte) ( (bytes[iter] & 0xf0) >> 4);
        byte low =  (byte)   (bytes[iter] & 0x0f);
        sb.append(nibble2char(high));
        sb.append(nibble2char(low));
    }

    return sb.toString();
}

private static char nibble2char(byte b) {
    byte nibble = (byte) (b & 0x0f);
    if (nibble < 10) {
        return (char) ('0' + nibble);
    }
    return (char) ('a' + nibble - 10);
}

Answer 6

Guava makes it pretty simple too:

BaseEncoding.base16().encode( bytes );

It's a nice alternative when Apache Commons is not available. It also has some nice controls of the output like:

byte[] bytes = new byte[] { 0xa, 0xb, 0xc, 0xd, 0xe, 0xf };
BaseEncoding.base16().lowerCase().withSeparator( ":", 2 ).encode( bytes );
// "0a:0b:0c:0d:0e:0f"