How to convert byte array to String and STring to byte array

Question

I have to convert byte array to String and vice versa?

Answer 1

The conversion between byte[] and String is to explicitly state the encoding you want to use. If you start with a byte[] and it does not in fact contain text data, there is no "proper conversion". Strings are for text, byte[] is for binary data, and the only really sensible thing to do is to avoid converting between them unless you absolutely have to.

byte[] bytes = {...}
String str = new String(bytes, "UTF-8"); // for UTF-8 encoding

Answer 2

The best possible way of conversion between byte[] and String is to explicitly state the encoding that you want to use. If you start with a byte[] and it does not in fact contain text data, there is no"proper conversion". Strings are for text, byte[] is for binary data, and the only really sensible thing to do is to avoid converting between them unless you absolutely have to.

If you really must use a String to hold binary data then the safest way is to use Base64encoding.