guid to base64, for URL

Question

Question: is there a better way to do that?

VB.Net

Function GuidToBase64(ByVal guid As Guid) As String
    Return Convert.ToBase64String(guid.ToByteArray).Replace("/", "-").Replace("+", "_").Replace("=", "")
End Function

Function Base64ToGuid(ByVal base64 As String) As Guid
    Dim guid As Guid
    base64 = base64.Replace("-", "/").Replace("_", "+") & "=="

    Try
        guid = New Guid(Convert.FromBase64String(base64))
    Catch ex As Exception
        Throw New Exception("Bad Base64 conversion to GUID", ex)
    End Try

    Return guid
End Function

C#

public string GuidToBase64(Guid guid)
{
    return Convert.ToBase64String(guid.ToByteArray).Replace("/", "-").Replace("+", "_").Replace("=", "");
}

public Guid Base64ToGuid(string base64)
{
   Guid guid = default(Guid);
   base64 = base64.Replace("-", "/").Replace("_", "+") + "==";

   try {
       guid = new Guid(Convert.FromBase64String(base64));
   }
   catch (Exception ex) {
       throw new Exception("Bad Base64 conversion to GUID", ex);
   }

   return guid;
}

Answer 1

If your method cannot convert the Base64 passed to it to a GUID, shouldn't you throw an exception? The data passed to the method is clearly erronous.

Answer 2

I understand that the reason you are clipping == in the end is that because you can be certain that for GUID (of 16 bytes), encoded string will always end with ==. So 2 characters can be saved in every conversion.

Beside the point @Skurmedal already mentioned (should throw an exception in case of invalid string as input), I think the code you posted is just good enough.

Answer 3

You might want to check out this site: http://prettycode.org/2009/11/12/short-guid/

It looks very close to what you're doing.