Convert.FromBase64String()

Question

Hello,

Q1 - If character ‘C’ is saved into viewstate, then just before the page is rendered,Asp.Net serializes ‘C’(along with other data) into Base64 string. If on postback I issue the following code:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
     TextBox1.Text = "ABCDEF";
     if (IsPostBack)
     {
          string viewStateString=Request["__VIEWSTATE"];

          byte[] stringBytes = Convert.FromBase64String(viewStateString);

          for (int i = 0; i < stringBytes.Length; i++)
          {
              if(stringBytes[i] == 67)
                    Label1.Text = ”deserialization successful”; 
          }               
     }
 }

, then FromBase64String() should convert serialized data back into their original format. Thus, one of ‘stringBytes’ fields should contain a decimal value 67( which represents ASCII character C) .But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Any ideas what I’m doing wrong?

Q2 - Since String represents a set of Unicode characters, I assume that in the above example when “ABCDEF” is deserialized from the viewstate, each character in “ABCDEF” string is represented with two elements of a ‘stringBytes’ array?

bye

EDIT:

I must apologize for not mentioning that I did set enableViewStateMac to false in Page tag, but it still didn't work

Answer 1

In addition to Base64 encoding ASP.NET encrypts that data. If you decode it without decrypting, you won't get initial values.