How to: Convert Strings into an Array of Bytes in Visual Basic

This topic shows how to convert a string into an array of bytes.

Example

This example uses the GetBytes method of the Encoding.Unicode encoding class to convert a string into an array of bytes.

Private Function UnicodeStringToBytes(
    ByVal str As String) As Byte()

    Return System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(str)
End Function

You can choose from several encoding options to convert a string into a byte array:

• Encoding.ASCII: Gets an encoding for the ASCII (7-bit) character set.

• Encoding.BigEndianUnicode: Gets an encoding for the UTF-16 format using the big-endian byte order.

• Encoding.Default: Gets an encoding for the system's current ANSI code page.

• Encoding.Unicode: Gets an encoding for the UTF-16 format using the little-endian byte order.

• Encoding.UTF32: Gets an encoding for the UTF-32 format using the little-endian byte order.

• Encoding.UTF7: Gets an encoding for the UTF-7 format.

• Encoding.UTF8: Gets an encoding for the UTF-8 format.

See also

• System.Text.Encoding
• GetBytes
• How to: Convert an Array of Bytes into a String in Visual Basic