In Java, how do I convert a byte array to a string of hex digits while keeping leading zeros?

Question

I'm working with some example java code for making md5 hashes. One part converts the results from bytes to a string of hex digits:

byte messageDigest[] = algorithm.digest();     
StringBuffer hexString = new StringBuffer();
for (int i=0;i<messageDigest.length;i++) {
    hexString.append(Integer.toHexString(0xFF & messageDigest[i]));
    }

However, it doesn't quite work since toHexString apparently drops off leading zeros. So, what's the simplest way to go from byte array to hex string that maintains the leading zeros?

Answer 1

This what I am using for MD5 hashes:

public static String getMD5(String filename)
  throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, IOException {
 MessageDigest messageDigest = 
  java.security.MessageDigest.getInstance("MD5");

 InputStream in = new FileInputStream(filename);

 byte [] buffer = new byte[8192];
 int len = in.read(buffer, 0, buffer.length);

 while (len > 0) {
  messageDigest.update(buffer, 0, len);
  len = in.read(buffer, 0, buffer.length);
 }
 in.close();

 return new BigInteger(1, messageDigest.digest()).toString(16);
}

EDIT: I've tested and I've noticed that with this also trailing zeros are cut. But this can only happen in the beginning, so you can compare with the expected length and pad accordingly.

Answer 2

Well, a simple approach would be to check how many digits are output by Integer.toHexString(). Something like this:

String hex = Integer.toHexString(0xFF & messageDigest[i]);
if (hex.length() == 1) {
    // could use a for loop, but we're only dealing with a single byte
    hexString.append('0');
}
hexString.append(hex);

Answer 3

String result = String.format("%0" + messageDigest.length + "s", hexString.toString())

That's the shortest solution given what you already have. If you could convert the byte array to a numeric value, String.format can convert it to a hex string at the same time.

Answer 4

byte messageDigest[] = algorithm.digest();
StringBuffer hexString = new StringBuffer();
for (int i = 0; i < messageDigest.length; i++) {
    String hexByte = Integer.toHexString(0xFF & messageDigest[i]);
    int numDigits = 2 - hexByte.length();
    while (numDigits-- > 0) {
        hexString.append('0');
    }
    hexString.append(hexByte);
}

Answer 5

Check out Apache Commons Codec Hex.encodeHex. Return type is char[] which can trivially be converted to String. So:

  String hexString = new String(Hex.encodeHex(messageDigest));

Answer 6

This solution is a little older school, and should be memory efficient.

public static String toHexString(byte bytes[]) {
    if (bytes == null) {
        return null;
    }

    StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
    for (int iter = 0; iter < bytes.length; iter++) {
        byte high = (byte) ( (bytes[iter] & 0xf0) >> 4);
        byte low =  (byte)   (bytes[iter] & 0x0f);
        sb.append(nibble2char(high));
        sb.append(nibble2char(low));
    }

    return sb.toString();
}

private static char nibble2char(byte b) {
    byte nibble = (byte) (b & 0x0f);
    if (nibble < 10) {
        return (char) ('0' + nibble);
    }
    return (char) ('a' + nibble - 10);
}

Answer 7

You can use the one below. I tested this with leading zero bytes and with initial negative bytes as well

public static String toHex(byte[] bytes) {
    BigInteger bi = new BigInteger(1, bytes);
    return String.format("%0" + (bytes.length << 1) + "X", bi);
}

If you want lowercase hex digits, use "x" in the format String.

Answer 8

Another option

public static String toHexString(byte[]bytes) {
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(bytes.length*2);
    for(byte b: bytes)
      sb.append(Integer.toHexString(b+0x800).substring(1));
    return sb.toString();
}

Answer 9

I found Integer.toHexString to be a little slow. If you are converting many bytes, you may want to consider building an array of Strings containing "00".."FF" and use the integer as the index. I.e.

hexString.append(hexArray[0xFF & messageDigest[i]]);

This is faster and ensures the correct length. Just requires the array of strings:

String[] hexArray = { "00","01","02","03","04","05","06","07","08","09","0A","0B","0C","0D","0E","0F", "10","11","12","13","14","15","16","17","18","19","1A","1B","1C","1D","1E","1F", "20","21","22","23","24","25","26","27","28","29","2A","2B","2C","2D","2E","2F", "30","31","32","33","34","35","36","37","38","39","3A","3B","3C","3D","3E","3F", "40","41","42","43","44","45","46","47","48","49","4A","4B","4C","4D","4E","4F", "50","51","52","53","54","55","56","57","58","59","5A","5B","5C","5D","5E","5F", "60","61","62","63","64","65","66","67","68","69","6A","6B","6C","6D","6E","6F", "70","71","72","73","74","75","76","77","78","79","7A","7B","7C","7D","7E","7F", "80","81","82","83","84","85","86","87","88","89","8A","8B","8C","8D","8E","8F", "90","91","92","93","94","95","96","97","98","99","9A","9B","9C","9D","9E","9F", "A0","A1","A2","A3","A4","A5","A6","A7","A8","A9","AA","AB","AC","AD","AE","AF", "B0","B1","B2","B3","B4","B5","B6","B7","B8","B9","BA","BB","BC","BD","BE","BF", "C0","C1","C2","C3","C4","C5","C6","C7","C8","C9","CA","CB","CC","CD","CE","CF", "D0","D1","D2","D3","D4","D5","D6","D7","D8","D9","DA","DB","DC","DD","DE","DF", "E0","E1","E2","E3","E4","E5","E6","E7","E8","E9","EA","EB","EC","ED","EE","EF", "F0","F1","F2","F3","F4","F5","F6","F7","F8","F9","FA","FB","FC","FD","FE","FF"};

Answer 10

I've been looking for the same thing ... some good ideas here, but I ran a few micro benchmarks. I found the following to be the fastest (modified from Ayman's above and about 2x as fast, and about 50% faster than Steve's just above this one):

public static String hash(String text, String algorithm)
        throws NoSuchAlgorithmException {
    byte[] hash = MessageDigest.getInstance(algorithm).digest(text.getBytes());
    return new BigInteger(1, hash).toString(16);
}

Edit: Oops - missed that this is essentially the same as kgiannakakis's and so may strip off a leading 0. Still, modifying this to the following, it's still the fastest:

public static String hash(String text, String algorithm)
        throws NoSuchAlgorithmException {
    byte[] hash = MessageDigest.getInstance(algorithm).digest(text.getBytes());
    BigInteger bi = new BigInteger(1, hash);
    String result = bi.toString(16);
    if (result.length() % 2 != 0) {
        return "0" + result;
    }
    return result;
}

Answer 11

It appears concat and append functions can be really slow. The following was MUCH faster for me (than my previous post). Changing to a char array in building the output was the key factor to speed it up. I have not compared to Hex.encodeHex suggested by Brandon DuRette.

public static String toHexString(byte[] bytes) {
    char[] hexArray = {'0','1','2','3','4','5','6','7','8','9','A','B','C','D','E','F'};
    char[] hexChars = new char[10000000];
    int c = 0;
    int v;
    for ( j = 0; j < bytes.length; j++ ) {
        v = bytes[j] & 0xFF;
        hexChars[c] = hexArray[v/16];
        c++;
        hexChars[c] = hexArray[v%16];
        c++;
    }
    return new String(hexChars, 0, c); }

Answer 12

I liked Steve's submissions, but he could have done without a couple of variables and saved several lines in the process.

public static String toHexString(byte[] bytes) {
    char[] hexArray = {'0','1','2','3','4','5','6','7','8','9','A','B','C','D','E','F'};
    char[] hexChars = new char[bytes.length * 2];
    int v;
    for ( int j = 0; j < bytes.length; j++ ) {
        v = bytes[j] & 0xFF;
        hexChars[j*2] = hexArray[v/16];
        hexChars[j*2 + 1] = hexArray[v%16];
    }
    return new String(hexChars);
}

What I like about this is that it's easy to see exactly what it's doing (instead of relying on some magic BigInteger black box conversion) and you're also free from having to worry about corner cases like leading-zeroes and stuff. This routine takes every 4-bit nibble and turns it into a hex char. And it's using a table lookup, so it's probably fast. It could probably be faster if you replace v/16 and v%16 with bitwise shifts and AND's, but I'm too lazy to test it right now.

Answer 13

static String toHex(byte[] digest) {
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    for (byte b : digest) {
        sb.append(String.format("%1$02X", b));
    }

    return sb.toString();
}

Answer 14

In order to keep leading zeroes, here is a small variation on what has Paul suggested (eg md5 hash):

public static String MD5hash(String text) throws NoSuchAlgorithmException {
    byte[] hash = MessageDigest.getInstance("MD5").digest(text.getBytes());
    return String.format("%032x",new BigInteger(1, hash));
}

Oops, this looks poorer than what's Ayman proposed, sorry for that

Answer 15

static String toHex(byte[] digest) {
    String digits = "0123456789abcdef";
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(digest.length * 2);
    for (byte b : digest) {
        int bi = b & 0xff;
        sb.append(digits.charAt(bi >> 4));
        sb.append(digits.charAt(bi & 0xf));
    }
    return sb.toString();
}

Answer 16

A simpler way is here