Hexadecimal, Binary, and Decimal conversions

rudy.net

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22 Apr 20052 min read

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This project contains a class aimed to all possible combinations for hexadecimal, binary, and decimal conversions.

Download demo project - 188 Kb

Introduction

By now, you would think that Microsoft would have a set of standard functions available to do Hexadecimal, Binary, and Decimal conversions. I looked around and found the BitArray, but it was not enough for, what I needed here is a set of classes to do all of these conversions including decimal conversions to signed integers and unsigned integers.

The Project

The project consists of a Bits class to do all the bit manipulations, a Hex class to do all the hexadecimal manipulations, a Conversion class that consists of static methods to do miscellaneous set of conversions among hexadecimal, binary, and decimal conversions. The project also includes a HexTextBox class and a HexGrid class.

The HexTextBox class is derived from RichTextBox and its purpose is to ensure that the user enters only valid digits that are within a valid range. The class can be set to Hexadecimal mode, Decimal mode, and Binary mode. When in hexadecimal mode, it prevents user from entering digits that are not hexadecimal. Same functionality for decimal and binary mode. In binary mode, the tooltip is enabled to show the bit position as the mouse is moved across the text box.

The HexGrid class is derived from DataGrid and can be used to edit hexadecimal sets of data.

Conversions Available

public static string IntToBin(int number, int numBits)
public static string UIntToBin(uint number, int numBits)
public static string HexToBin(string hexData)
public static int BinToInt(string binData)
public static uint BinToUInt(string binData)
public static string BinToHex(string binData)
public static int HexToInt(string hexData)
public static uint HexToUInt(string hexData)
public static string IntToHex(int data, int numBytes)
public static string UIntToHex(uint data, int numBytes)
public static int UIntToInt(uint data, int numBits)
public static uint IntToUInt(int data, int numBits)

Additional Conversions

You can add many more conversions as needed. The constructors of the Bits and Hex classes have additional overloads that you can use to create additional conversions.

For example, to convert from an array of bytes to a bit string, you would use the following code:

byte[] byteArray = new byte[] {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}; 
string bitString = new Bits(byteArray).ToString();

Additional Documentation

The project includes full documentation with descriptions available for all public methods. The documentation was created with NDoc.

How to Use the Code?

To use the code you just need to include the "Bin" project in your solution, add it to your references and then you should be able to start using any of the conversions available.

For example, to convert from a hexadecimal string to binary string:

string hexData = "AABBCCDD01234567";
string binData = Conversion.HexToBin(hexData);

Conclusion

I hope, you find these classes useful and let me know when you find bugs so that I can correct them in my code.

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here

Written By

rudy.net

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This member has not yet provided a Biography. Assume it's interesting and varied, and probably something to do with programming.

Comments and Discussions

How to read a text file consisting of alphanumeric characters, white spaces & punctuations and then convert the data into binary values using ASCII codes, in C language

Dineshbabu Uvarajulu16-Oct-14 3:26

Dineshbabu Uvarajulu

16-Oct-14 3:26

I want to do bit stuffing. I wrote a program for that. But before doing that I need a program read a text file consisting of alphanumeric characters, white spaces & punctuations and then convert the data into binary values using ASCII codes, in C language.
Please help me.

Here is my bit stuffing code:

#include<stdio.h>

Thanks in Advance,
Dinesh

Re: How to read a text file consisting of alphanumeric characters, white spaces & punctuations and then convert the data into binary values using ASCII codes, in C language

rudy.net16-Oct-14 7:40

rudy.net

16-Oct-14 7:40

When you read the characters from a file, you are already obtaining an array of bytes which means that the data is already in binary format (internally). What you want to do is apply bit stuffing to the bytes themselves.
For example, if you have a file with the contents "hello", when you read the file into a char buffer you will have:
buf[0] = 0x68
buf[1] = 0x65
buf[2] = 0x6c
buf[3] = 0x6c
buf[4] = 0x6f

Where buf is a variable that you declare using malloc based on the file size. In this case the file size of 5 bytes. To avoid doing any changes to your bit stuffing code, simply convert from buf array to 'a' array. In this case you would end up with 5x8 bits, that is, 40 bits.
The following code (not tested) will give you some idea about it.

C++

for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
  for (int bit_pos = 7; bit_pos >= 0; bit_pos--) {   //store bits starting with most significant bit first
    bit_val = (buf[i] >> bit_pos) & 1;
    a[k++] = bit_val;
  }
}

from original text file with bytes: 68 65 6c 6c 6f
You array 'a' would end up with:
0110_1000 0110_0101 0110_1100 0110_1100 0110_1111

where a[0] = 0 (msbit)
and a[39] = 1 (lsbit)

Is this DLL licensed freeware?

Khadar12331-Mar-09 1:31

Khadar123

31-Mar-09 1:31

Rudy,

I'm planning to use your Bin.dll.

Do you have explicit evidence to state that this DLL is licensed freeware?

Khadar

modified on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 8:11 AM

Re: Is this DLL licensed freeware?

rudy.net31-Mar-09 10:06

rudy.net

31-Mar-09 10:06

I don't know what you mean other than the fact that I wrote the code from scratch.
I think there is a general license for codeproject users so this code falls under that license. Other than that, feel free to use it as needed. I think I did a couple of fixes later on. I will search for the update and will let you know the fixes.

Genius!!

indogerman12-Feb-09 23:11

indogerman

12-Feb-09 23:11

Hey,

Amazing conversions! The code was very very helpful!

Thanks! Smile | :)

unable to open file

metoofaiza1-Nov-08 21:23

metoofaiza

1-Nov-08 21:23

hi!
i m new on this site..i m unable to open zip folder,
visual studio conversion wizard appears and after finishing.a window pops up but not any code?please help in case

good day!!

maRk_maGic15-Jun-08 17:50

maRk_maGic

15-Jun-08 17:50

Can you please give me a code for Binary,Octal,hexadecimal systems to decimal system in c?

Thanks!

Re: good day!!

rudy.net16-Jun-08 8:42

rudy.net

16-Jun-08 8:42

If you meant C# the code is already part of the zip contents.
If you really meant "C" then you can convert based on my code.

CAN SHOW ME the CODE HEX to DEC in JAVA

ranzJR22-Nov-07 18:55

ranzJR

22-Nov-07 18:55

can u show me plsss....

hex to dec simple program code.

ranzJR ^^

Re: CAN SHOW ME the CODE HEX to DEC in JAVA

rudy.net26-Nov-07 1:17

rudy.net

26-Nov-07 1:17

I am not familiar with Java but it should be simple. Following is a simple example on how to do this conversion using vb.net:

<br />
Public Shared Function HexToInt(ByVal hexString As String) As Integer<br />
	Dim result As Integer = 0<br />
	Dim currValue As Integer<br />
	Dim hexChars() As Char = hexString.ToCharArray()<br />
	For i As Integer = 0 To hexChars.Length - 1<br />
		currValue = Uri.FromHex(hexChars(i))<br />
		result <<= 4<br />
		result = result Or currValue<br />
	Next<br />
	Return result<br />
End Function<br />

In java you probably don't have "Uri.FromHex" so what you can do in this case is look at the character and if it's 0 to 9 then it's just the number itself and if it's A to F then convert to number 10 to 15.

display a binary file in heaxdecimal

NEKSA16-Jul-06 0:13

NEKSA

16-Jul-06 0:13

Bonjour,

I find your code very interesting but
I'm a newbie and i need some helps:
I need to diplay a binary file (from a mail's attachment) to hexdecimal and I don't know how to do that.

Could you show me an example by using your class ?

many thanks

Neksa

Re: display a binary file in heaxdecimal

rudy.net17-Jul-06 3:51

rudy.net

17-Jul-06 3:51

Neksa,
You just need to create a Bin.Hex variable then call ToString() method.
Following is an example which has extra lines of code to measure time. The ToString() method may need some optimization for very large files.

<br />
		private string ReadBinaryFile(string path)<br />
		{<br />
			FileStream fs = new FileStream(this.txtFilepath.Text, System.IO.FileMode.Open);<br />
			int numBytes = (int)fs.Length;<br />
			byte[] buffer = new byte[numBytes];<br />
<br />
			BinaryReader reader = new BinaryReader(fs);<br />
			reader.Read(buffer, 0, numBytes);<br />
			fs.Close();<br />
<br />
			long t1 = DateTime.Now.Ticks;<br />
			Bin.Hex hexData = new Bin.Hex(buffer);<br />
			long t2 = DateTime.Now.Ticks;<br />
			string result = hexData.ToString();<br />
			long t3 = DateTime.Now.Ticks;<br />
			<br />
			TimeSpan ts1 = new TimeSpan(t2-t1);<br />
			TimeSpan ts2 = new TimeSpan(t3-t2);<br />
			<br />
			Trace.WriteLine("Constructor: " + ts1.Milliseconds.ToString()+"ms  ToString:"+ts2.Milliseconds.ToString()+"ms");<br />
			<br />
			return result;<br />
		}<br />
<br />

Regards,
Rudy.

signed vs unsigned

Talal Sultan10-May-06 3:22

Talal Sultan

10-May-06 3:22

Hi,

Good piece of work! I am using your code for int to bin conversion. Actually I have added some methods to convert from ulong to bin. I have a general remark concerning signed and unsigned integers, mostly for people who are unfamiliar with binary numbers. Here goes:

An overflow exception is thrown (without being caught) when the number of bits we provide is bigger than the expected number. That's normal. However, there is a little thing to note. When converting from Int32 to bin, the biggest number of bits we are allowed to enter is 31 and not 32 as Int32 indicates. That's because the leftmost bit is used for the sign, since Int32 is a SIGNED integer. The leftmost bit is the 32nd bit when counting from the right, its position is 31 since we begin counting from 0 and not from 1. The code provided takes this into consideration and provides 2 overloads of the constructor:

public Bits(int data, int numBits) and public Bits(uint data, int numBits)

So in order not to have an exception thrown, we must be careful to provide a maximum number of 31 when using the 1st method, but we can use 32 bits when calling the second method and providing an unsigned integer.

That's it. I hope this small contribution helps some of you out there Smile | :)

Talal

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."
--Rich Cook

Re: signed vs unsigned

rudy.net10-May-06 18:55

rudy.net

10-May-06 18:55

Talal,
Thanks for your input. Soon I will modify the code to have more error checking on several functions.

Regards,
Rudy.

Convert from Hex into Binary

ranycodeproject17-Apr-06 22:05

ranycodeproject

17-Apr-06 22:05

hello,

I couldn't convert from Hex into binary.
The following Error is given:An unhandled exception of type 'System.FormatException' occurred in mscorlib.dll

Additional information: Could not find any parsable digits.
I traced the code and it stops on this line:
byteArray[i] = Convert.ToByte(sTemp, 16); which is included in this function:
private byte [] ParseByteString(string data).

Please an help Mad | :mad:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Regards Rany,

Re: Convert from Hex into Binary

rudy.net18-Apr-06 2:36

rudy.net

18-Apr-06 2:36

Rany,
The conversion doesn't do any verification that the data passed is valid. Most likely the hex string passed to the conversion is not valid.
To get you going, just do a verification that the data is a valid hex number before you do the conversion. I will post a new release that verifies all inputs are valid before doing any conversions.

Regards,
Rudy.

Updates to this component

Eric Engler6-Apr-06 5:15

Eric Engler

6-Apr-06 5:15

I made some updates to this project to work with a low-level debugger I'm writing. I wanted to use this as an edit box that displays the contents of a CPU register in 4 possible modes: Hex, Decimal Signed, Decimal Unsigned, Binary.

Also, I needed it to support several states: modified by system, modified by user, and committed. I show modified by system with a red foreground, modified by user with a yellow background, and committed with normal black on white. It also keeps the previous value if the user modifies it so it can rollback the value.

I am not using the HexTextBox in a grid at this time, but that may be a future enhancement. I've made a new HexGrid that has many enhancements but I'm not ready to publish that yet. It's turned into a big project. There are many limitations of the Windows DataGrid that came into play, but thanks to the OOP design, I was able to customize all of those areas to make it behave as I wanted it to.

You can download my current HexTextBox from here. I'll make changes to this sometimes, so please submit bugs to me.

http://www.EricEngler.com/downloads/HexTextBox.zip

Re: Updates to this component

rudy.net6-Apr-06 12:29

rudy.net

6-Apr-06 12:29

Thanks Eric, I will try it out.
I also made some minor enhancements / bug fixes. Will compare with your project and will send you an update.

Regards,
Rudy.

.NET ver 2.0

gordsh19-Jan-06 9:29

gordsh

19-Jan-06 9:29

Have you updated this bin.dll to Ver 2.0 .NET?

SAG, CANADA

Re: .NET ver 2.0

rudy.net19-Jan-06 9:41

rudy.net

19-Jan-06 9:41

All the classes used in this project are backwards compatible with VS2.0 so you should be able to load it from VS2.0 with no problems at all. I haven't had a chance to verify functionality, but it should work just as well.
Regards,
Rudy.

suggestions

Eric Engler2-May-05 4:38

Eric Engler

2-May-05 4:38

You should never name a project "Bin" - this is confusing because everyone expects "bin" to be the name of a folder.

The "bye position" is just an indicator of which cell is selected in the grid, and it's not really a filter like the other items in that group box (which are both really bit filters).

The Grid is not updated after a user edits data. This is OK, but the demo would be more cool if you'd update the grid cell after the user edits data.

My code

DrGUI29-Apr-05 11:08

DrGUI

29-Apr-05 11:08

Hi!
Your code will be faster for your defined data types, but you can have my code for general conversion up to base 36 or something.
I must have written it about 5 years ago; I was only 10 then so it's in VB6, probably inefficient and poorly written. I'm sorry if it is and you'll be glad that I've moved from VB 6 to VB .NET then to C#.
Do whatever you want with the code below

'Can convert from any base to any other base<br />
<br />
Option Explicit<br />
<br />
Private Sub cmdCalculate_Click()<br />
    Dim aInputNum() As Double<br />
    Dim aOutputNum() As Double<br />
    Dim i As Long<br />
    Dim Base10Num As Variant<br />
    <br />
    On Error GoTo defaulterr<br />
    <br />
    'Convert the input number to base 10<br />
    <br />
    'resize the array holding the numbers of the characters<br />
    ReDim aInputNum(Len(InputNum.Text))<br />
    <br />
    'put the characters into an array of characters from a string and converts other symbols<br />
    For i = 0 To Len(InputNum.Text) - 1<br />
        aInputNum(i) = ConvertIntoNum10(Mid(InputNum.Text, i + 1, 1))<br />
    Next i<br />
<br />
    On Error GoTo base10err<br />
    <br />
    'convert to base 10<br />
    For i = 0 To Len(InputNum.Text) - 1<br />
        Base10Num = Base10Num + (aInputNum(i) * (FirstBase.Text ^ (Len(InputNum.Text) - i - 1)))<br />
    Next i<br />
    <br />
    Erase aInputNum<br />
    <br />
    NumInBase10.Text = Format$(Base10Num, "########################################")<br />
    <br />
    'convert base 10 to the other base<br />
    <br />
    'find the biggest number that fits into Base10Num<br />
    Dim MaxTableSize As Long<br />
    Do<br />
        If Val(SecondBase.Text) ^ MaxTableSize > Base10Num Then Exit Do<br />
        MaxTableSize = MaxTableSize + 1<br />
        DoEvents<br />
    Loop<br />
    <br />
    ReDim aOutputNum(MaxTableSize)<br />
    <br />
    Dim TableVal As Variant<br />
    Dim TempNum As Double<br />
    Dim OutputStr As String<br />
    TempNum = Base10Num<br />
    For i = 0 To MaxTableSize - 1<br />
        TableVal = Val(SecondBase.Text) ^ (MaxTableSize - i - 1)<br />
        Do<br />
            If Not (TempNum - TableVal) > -1 Then<br />
                Exit Do<br />
            Else<br />
                TempNum = TempNum - TableVal<br />
                aOutputNum(i) = aOutputNum(i) + 1<br />
            End If<br />
            DoEvents<br />
        Loop<br />
    Next i<br />
    <br />
    'make output string<br />
    For i = 0 To MaxTableSize - 1<br />
        OutputStr = OutputStr & ConvertIntoChar(aOutputNum(i))<br />
    Next i<br />
    <br />
    'output, clipping off the leading zeros<br />
    OutputNum.Text = Format$(OutputStr, "########################################")<br />
    <br />
    Exit Sub<br />
    <br />
base10err:<br />
    Debug.Print Err.Description<br />
    If Err.Number = 6 Then 'overflow<br />
        MsgBox "The number to be converted is too large", vbExclamation, "Number Transformer"<br />
    Else<br />
        GoTo defaulterr<br />
    End If<br />
    Exit Sub<br />
    <br />
defaulterr:<br />
    MsgBox Err.Number & vbCrLf & Err.Description, vbExclamation, "Number Transformer"<br />
End Sub<br />
<br />
Private Sub Form_Load()<br />
    Me.Show<br />
    #If FDEBUG = 1 Then<br />
        MsgBox "using conditional compilation!"<br />
    #End If<br />
End Sub<br />
<br />
Public Function ConvertIntoNum10(character As String) As Double<br />
    character = UCase(character)<br />
    Select Case character<br />
    Case "0": ConvertIntoNum10 = 0<br />
    Case "1": ConvertIntoNum10 = 1<br />
    Case "2": ConvertIntoNum10 = 2<br />
    Case "3": ConvertIntoNum10 = 3<br />
    Case "4": ConvertIntoNum10 = 4<br />
    Case "5": ConvertIntoNum10 = 5<br />
    Case "6": ConvertIntoNum10 = 6<br />
    Case "7": ConvertIntoNum10 = 7<br />
    Case "8": ConvertIntoNum10 = 8<br />
    Case "9": ConvertIntoNum10 = 9<br />
    <br />
    Case "A": ConvertIntoNum10 = 10<br />
    Case "B": ConvertIntoNum10 = 11<br />
    Case "C": ConvertIntoNum10 = 12<br />
    Case "D": ConvertIntoNum10 = 13<br />
    Case "E": ConvertIntoNum10 = 14<br />
    Case "F": ConvertIntoNum10 = 15<br />
    Case "G": ConvertIntoNum10 = 16<br />
    Case "H": ConvertIntoNum10 = 17<br />
    Case "I": ConvertIntoNum10 = 18<br />
    Case "J": ConvertIntoNum10 = 19<br />
    Case "K": ConvertIntoNum10 = 20<br />
    Case "L": ConvertIntoNum10 = 21<br />
    Case "M": ConvertIntoNum10 = 22<br />
    Case "N": ConvertIntoNum10 = 23<br />
    Case "O": ConvertIntoNum10 = 24<br />
    Case "P": ConvertIntoNum10 = 25<br />
    Case "Q": ConvertIntoNum10 = 26<br />
    Case "R": ConvertIntoNum10 = 27<br />
    Case "S": ConvertIntoNum10 = 28<br />
    Case "T": ConvertIntoNum10 = 29<br />
    Case "U": ConvertIntoNum10 = 30<br />
    Case "V": ConvertIntoNum10 = 31<br />
    Case "W": ConvertIntoNum10 = 32<br />
    Case "X": ConvertIntoNum10 = 33<br />
    Case "Y": ConvertIntoNum10 = 34<br />
    Case "Z": ConvertIntoNum10 = 35<br />
    End Select<br />
End Function<br />
<br />
Public Function ConvertIntoChar(num10 As Double) As String<br />
    Select Case num10<br />
    Case 0: ConvertIntoChar = "0"<br />
    Case 1: ConvertIntoChar = "1"<br />
    Case 2: ConvertIntoChar = "2"<br />
    Case 3: ConvertIntoChar = "3"<br />
    Case 4: ConvertIntoChar = "4"<br />
    Case 5: ConvertIntoChar = "5"<br />
    Case 6: ConvertIntoChar = "6"<br />
    Case 7: ConvertIntoChar = "7"<br />
    Case 8: ConvertIntoChar = "8"<br />
    Case 9: ConvertIntoChar = "9"<br />
     <br />
    Case 10: ConvertIntoChar = "A"<br />
    Case 11: ConvertIntoChar = "B"<br />
    Case 12: ConvertIntoChar = "C"<br />
    Case 13: ConvertIntoChar = "D"<br />
    Case 14: ConvertIntoChar = "E"<br />
    Case 15: ConvertIntoChar = "F"<br />
    Case 16: ConvertIntoChar = "G"<br />
    Case 17: ConvertIntoChar = "H"<br />
    Case 18: ConvertIntoChar = "I"<br />
    Case 19: ConvertIntoChar = "J"<br />
    Case 20: ConvertIntoChar = "K"<br />
    Case 21: ConvertIntoChar = "L"<br />
    Case 22: ConvertIntoChar = "M"<br />
    Case 23: ConvertIntoChar = "N"<br />
    Case 24: ConvertIntoChar = "O"<br />
    Case 25: ConvertIntoChar = "P"<br />
    Case 26: ConvertIntoChar = "Q"<br />
    Case 27: ConvertIntoChar = "R"<br />
    Case 28: ConvertIntoChar = "S"<br />
    Case 29: ConvertIntoChar = "T"<br />
    Case 30: ConvertIntoChar = "U"<br />
    Case 31: ConvertIntoChar = "V"<br />
    Case 32: ConvertIntoChar = "W"<br />
    Case 33: ConvertIntoChar = "X"<br />
    Case 34: ConvertIntoChar = "Y"<br />
    Case 35: ConvertIntoChar = "Z"<br />
    End Select<br />
End Function<br />
<br />
Private Sub Form_Terminate()<br />
    End<br />
End Sub

Re: My code

terwin17-Jun-05 6:11

terwin

17-Jun-05 6:11

I realize that you wrote that when you were ten, but since then we now have .ToString and Convert.To... in VS.NET.

For example, a long number which derives from System.Object and overloads .ToString to returns the string version of it. And I use Convert.ToInt64( string ) to get back.

For bin to hex, .NET has System.Byte.ToString( "X" ).PadLeft( 2, '0' ) which will give you a properly aligned hex number.

Re: My code

new2unix@gmail.com23-Jan-06 3:52

new2unix@gmail.com

23-Jan-06 3:52

how can i read a binary file into binary digits and write those binarydigits into another file

Re: My code

terwin23-Jan-06 3:59

terwin

23-Jan-06 3:59

Open the binary file using the FileStream class, write to a MemoryStream class and then write from the MemoryStream into another FileStream.

You may be able to just write directly from one FileStream to another FileStream.

Use Ctrl+Left/Right to switch messages, Ctrl+Up/Down to switch threads, Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right to switch pages.