Convert from string to binary in VB.NET

Question

Let's say that I have the string "A3C0", and I want to store the binary value of it in a Boolean array.

After the conversion (from string to binary) the result should be = 1010001111000000

Then I want to store it in this array,

dim bits_array(15) as Boolean

at the end:

bits_array(0)=0
bits_array(1)=0
 .
 .
 .
 .
bits_array(15)=1

How can I do this?

Solution 1

It's easy.

Function HexStringToBinary(ByVal hexString As String) As String
    Dim num As Integer = Integer.Parse(hexString, NumberStyles.HexNumber)
    Return Convert.ToString(num, 2)
End Function

Sample Usage:

Dim hexString As String = "A3C0"
Dim binaryString As String = HexStringToBinary(hexString)
MessageBox.Show("Hex: " & hexString & "    Binary: " & binaryString)

To get the binary digits into an array, you can simply do:

Dim binaryDigits = HexStringToBinary(hexString).ToCharArray

Solution 2

Let s be the input string with value A3C0, output be a variable to store the output. loop will iterate each letter in the input and store it in the temporary variable temp. Now see the code:

Dim s As String = "A3C0"
Dim output As String = ""
Dim temp As String = ""
For i As Integer = 1 To Len(s)
    temp = Mid(s, i, 1)
    output = output & System.Convert.ToString(Asc(temp), 2).PadLeft(4, "0")
    ' converting each letter into corresponding binary value
    'concatenate it with the output to get the final output 
Next
MsgBox(output)' display the binary equivalent of the input `s` 
Dim array() As Char = output.ToArray()' convert the binary string  to binary array

Hope that this is actually you are expected.

Comments

[baraa]

Actually I want to convert the number from Hex to binary, and I think you convert it from ASCII to binary. Anyways thanks for your help

[Revolucion for Monica]

Great! But what is NumberStyles? Shouldn't it be declared?

[Pradeep Kumar]

@Marine1, NumberStyles is an Enum and HexNumber is one of the members inside it. It is already declared. You can just simply use it.

[Herb]

@Marine1, Pradeep is not correct. It requires System.Globalization.