How to convert UTF-8 byte to string

Question

I have a byte   array that is loaded from a file that I happen to known contains UTF-8      In some debugging code  I need to convert it to a string  Is there a one liner that will do this    Under the covers it should be just an allocation and a memcopy  so even if it is not implemented  it should be possible

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string result   System Text Encoding UTF8 GetString byteArray

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To my knowledge none of the given answers guarantee correct behavior with null termination  Until someone shows me differently I wrote my own static class for handling this with the following methods      Mimics the functionality of strlen   in c c      Needed because niether StringBuilder or Encoding   GetString   handle  0 well static int StringLength byte   buffer  int startIndex   0        int strlen   0      while                startIndex   strlen   1   lt  buffer Length    Make sure incrementing won t break any bounds          amp  amp  buffer startIndex   strlen     0          The typical null terimation check                       strlen            return strlen        This is messy  but I haven t found a built-in way in c  that guarentees null termination public static string ParseBytes byte   buffer  out int strlen  int startIndex   0        strlen   StringLength buffer  startIndex       byte   c str   new byte strlen       Array Copy buffer  startIndex  c str  0  strlen       return Encoding UTF8 GetString c str       The reason for the startIndex was in the example I was working on specifically I needed to parse a byte   as an array of null terminated strings  It can be safely ignored in the simple case

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A general solution to convert from byte array to string when you don t know the encoding       static string BytesToStringConverted byte   bytes        using  var stream   new MemoryStream bytes                 using  var streamReader   new StreamReader stream                         return streamReader ReadToEnd

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I saw some answers at this post and it s possible to be considered completed base knowledge  because have a several approaches in C  Programming to resolve the same problem  Only one thing that is necessary to be considered is about a difference between Pure UTF-8 and UTF-8 with B O M    In last week  at my job  I need to develop one functionality that outputs CSV files with B O M  and other CSVs with pure UTF-8  without B O M    each CSV file Encoding type will be consumed by different non-standardized APIs  that one API read UTF-8 with B O M  and the other API read without B O M   I need to research the references about this concept  reading  What s the difference between UTF-8 and UTF-8 without B O M    Stack Overflow discussion and this Wikipedia link  Byte order mark  to build my approach   Finally  my C  Programming for the both UTF-8 encoding types  with B O M  and pure  needed to be similar like this example bellow     for UTF-8 with B O M   equals shared by Zanoni  at top  string result   System Text Encoding UTF8 GetString byteArray      for Pure UTF-8  without B O M   string result    new UTF8Encoding false   GetString byteArray

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There is also class UnicodeEncoding  quite simple in usage   ByteConverter   new UnicodeEncoding    string stringDataForEncoding    My  Secret  Data    byte   dataEncoded   ByteConverter GetBytes stringDataForEncoding    Console WriteLine  Data after decoding   0    ByteConverter GetString dataEncoded

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hier is a result where you didnt have to bother with encoding  I used it in my network class and send binary objects as string with it           public static byte   String2ByteArray string str                        char   chars   str ToArray                byte   bytes   new byte chars Length   2                for  int i   0  i  lt  chars Length  i                    Array Copy BitConverter GetBytes chars i    0  bytes  i   2  2                return bytes                     public static string ByteArray2String byte   bytes                        char   chars   new char bytes Length   2                for  int i   0  i  lt  chars Length  i                    chars i    BitConverter ToChar bytes  i   2                return new string chars

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There re at least four different ways doing this conversion    Encoding s GetString  but you won t be able to get the original bytes back if those bytes have non-ASCII characters  BitConverter ToString The output is a  -  delimited string  but there s no  NET built-in method to convert the string back to byte array  Convert ToBase64String You can easily convert the output string back to byte array by using Convert FromBase64String  Note  The output string could contain          and      If you want to use the string in a URL  you need to explicitly encode it  HttpServerUtility UrlTokenEncodeYou can easily convert the output string back to byte array by using HttpServerUtility UrlTokenDecode  The output string is already URL friendly  The downside is it needs System Web assembly if your project is not a web project    A full example   byte   bytes     130  200  234  23       A byte array contains non-ASCII  or non-readable  characters  string s1   Encoding UTF8 GetString bytes          byte   decBytes1   Encoding UTF8 GetBytes s1       decBytes1 Length    10       decBytes1 not same as bytes    Using UTF-8 or other Encoding object will get similar results  string s2   BitConverter ToString bytes        82-C8-EA-17 String   tempAry   s2 Split  -    byte   decBytes2   new byte tempAry Length   for  int i   0  i  lt  tempAry Length  i        decBytes2 i    Convert ToByte tempAry i   16      decBytes2 same as bytes  string s3   Convert ToBase64String bytes       gsjqFw   byte   decByte3   Convert FromBase64String s3      decByte3 same as bytes  string s4   HttpServerUtility UrlTokenEncode bytes         gsjqFw2 byte   decBytes4   HttpServerUtility UrlTokenDecode s4      decBytes4 same as bytes

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Try this console app      static void Main string   args          Encoding  UTF8   Encoding UTF8      string    mainString      H  llo World         Console WriteLine  Main String       mainString          Convert a string to utf-8 bytes      byte    utf8Bytes   Encoding UTF8 GetBytes  mainString 0           Convert utf-8 bytes to a string      string  stringuUnicode   Encoding UTF8 GetString  utf8Bytes       Console WriteLine  String Unicode       stringuUnicode

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In adition to the selected answer  if you re using  NET35 or  NET35 CE  you have to specify the index of the first byte to decode  and the number of bytes to decode   string result   System Text Encoding UTF8 GetString byteArray 0 byteArray Length

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A Linq one-liner for converting a byte array byteArrFilename read from a file to a pure ascii C-style zero-terminated string would be this  Handy for reading things like file index tables in old archive formats   String filename   new String byteArrFilename TakeWhile x   gt  x    0                                 Select x   gt  x  lt  128    Char x        ToArray       I use     as default char for anything not pure ascii here  but that can be changed  of course  If you want to be sure you can detect it  just use   0  instead  since the TakeWhile at the start ensures that a string built this way cannot possibly contain   0  values from the input source

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Alternatively    var byteStr   Convert ToBase64String bytes

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Using  byte b ToString  x2    Outputs b4b5dfe475e58b67  public static class Ext        public static string ToHexString this byte   hex                if  hex    null  return null          if  hex Length    0  return string Empty           var s   new StringBuilder            foreach  byte b in hex                s Append b ToString  x2                       return s ToString               public static byte   ToHexBytes this string hex                if  hex    null  return null          if  hex Length    0  return new byte 0            int l   hex Length   2          var b   new byte l           for  int i   0  i  lt  l    i                b i    Convert ToByte hex Substring i   2  2   16                     return b             public static bool EqualsTo this byte   bytes  byte   bytesToCompare                if  bytes    null  amp  amp  bytesToCompare    null  return true               if  bytes    null    bytesToCompare    null  return false          if  object ReferenceEquals bytes  bytesToCompare   return true           if  bytes Length    bytesToCompare Length  return false           for  int i   0  i  lt  bytes Length    i                if  bytes i     bytesToCompare i   return false                    return true

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Definition   public static string ConvertByteToString this byte   source        return source    null   System Text Encoding UTF8 GetString source    null      Using   string result   input ConvertByteToString

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BitConverter class can be used to convert a byte   to string   var convertedString   BitConverter ToString byteAttay     Documentation of BitConverter class can be fount on MSDN

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Converting a byte   to a string seems simple but any kind of encoding is likely to mess up the output string  This little function just works without any unexpected results    private string ToString byte   bytes        string response   string Empty       foreach  byte b in bytes          response     Char b       return response

[c#] How to convert UTF-8 byte[] to string?

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