[c#] An efficient way to Base64 encode a byte array?

I have a byte[] and I'm looking for the most efficient way to base64 encode it.

The problem is that the built in .Net method Convert.FromBase64CharArray requires a char[] as an input, and converting my byte[] to a char[] just to convert it again to a base64 encoded array seems pretty stupid.

Is there any more direct way to do it?

[[EDIT:]] I'll expaling what I want to acheive better - I have a byte[] and I need to return a new base64 encoded byte[]

To retrieve your image from byte to base64 string....

Model property:

    public byte[] NomineePhoto { get; set; }

    public string NomineePhoneInBase64Str 
    {
        get {
            if (NomineePhoto == null)
                return "";

            return $"data:image/png;base64,{Convert.ToBase64String(NomineePhoto)}";
        } 
    }

IN view:

   <img style="height:50px;width:50px" src="@item.NomineePhoneInBase64Str" />

Base64 is a way to represent bytes in a textual form (as a string). So there is no such thing as a Base64 encoded byte[]. You'd have a base64 encoded string, which you could decode back to a byte[].

However, if you want to end up with a byte array, you could take the base64 encoded string and convert it to a byte array, like:

string base64String = Convert.ToBase64String(bytes);
byte[] stringBytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(base64String);

This, however, makes no sense because the best way to represent a byte[] as a byte[], is the byte[] itself :)

Based on your edit and comments.. would this be what you're after?

byte[] newByteArray = UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(Convert.ToBase64String(currentByteArray));

Byte[] -> String: use system.convert.tobase64string

Convert.ToBase64String(byte[] data)

String -> Byte[]: use system.convert.frombase64string

Convert.FromBase64String(string data)

You could use the String Convert.ToBase64String(byte[]) to encode the byte array into a base64 string, then Byte[] Convert.FromBase64String(string) to convert the resulting string back into a byte array.

    public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
    {
        string constring = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["SQL_Connection_String"].ConnectionString;
        SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(constring);
        conn.Open();
        SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand("select image1 from TestGo where TestId=1", conn);
        SqlDataReader dr = cmd.ExecuteReader();
        dr.Read();
        MemoryStream str = new MemoryStream();

        context.Response.Clear();
        Byte[] bytes = (Byte[])dr[0];
        string d = System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetString(bytes);
        byte[] bytes2 = Convert.FromBase64String(d);
        //context.Response.Write(d);
        Image img = Image.FromStream(new MemoryStream(bytes2));
        img.Save(context.Response.OutputStream, ImageFormat.Png);
        context.Response.Flush();
        str.WriteTo(context.Response.OutputStream);
        str.Dispose();
        str.Close();
        conn.Close();
        context.Response.End();
    }

byte[] base64EncodedStringBytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(Convert.ToBase64String(binaryData))