How can I convert a Blowfish encoded binary string to ASCII in Ruby?

Question

I would like to encode some plain text using Ruby and the Crypt library. I would like to then transmit this encrypted text (along with some other data) as an ASCII hexadecimal string within an XML file.

I have the following code snippet:

require 'rubygems'
require 'crypt/blowfish'

plain = "This is the plain text"
puts plain

blowfish = Crypt::Blowfish.new("A key up to 56 bytes long")
enc = blowfish.encrypt_block(plain)
puts enc

Which outputs:

This is the plain text
????;

I believe I need to call enc.unpack() but I'm not sure what parameters are required to the unpack method call.

Answer 1

If you use decrypt_string and its counterpart encrypt_string it outputs it pretty easily. :)

require 'rubygems'
require 'crypt/blowfish'

plain = "This is the plain text"
puts plain

blowfish = Crypt::Blowfish.new("A key up to 56 bytes long")
enc = blowfish.encrypt_string(plain)
p blowfish.decrypt_string(enc)

Also found this blogpost that talks about speed concerns using the Crypt library, added just for reference. :)
http://basic70tech.wordpress.com/2007/03/09/blowfish-decryption-in-ruby/