Search code examples
c#stringtobase64string

String path to base64string

Im having a problem generating a base64string with a specific encoder.

I have an application that generate this base64string 

RQA6AFwAUAByAG8AagBlAGMAdABzAFwAWQBvAHUAdAB1AGIAZQAuAE0AYQBuAGEAZwBlAHIAXABZAG8AdQB0AHUAYgBlAC4ATQBhAG4AYQBnAGUAcgAuAE0AbwBkAGUAbABzAC4AQwBvAG4AdABhAGkAbgBlAHIAXABvAGIAagBcAFIAZQBsAGUAYQBzAGUAXABuAGUAdABzAHQAYQBuAGQAYQByAGQAMgAuADAAXABZAG8AdQB0AHUAYgBlAC4ATQBhAG4AYQBnAGUAcgAuAE0AbwBkAGUAbABzAC4AQwBvAG4AdABhAGkAbgBlAHIALgBkAGwAbAAAAA==

which is equal to 

E:\Projects\Youtube.Manager\Youtube.Manager.Models.Container\obj\Release\netstandard2.0\Youtube.Manager.Models.Container.dll

Now im trying convert 

E:\Projects\Youtube.Manager\Youtube.Manager.Models.Container\obj\Release\netstandard2.0\Youtube.Manager.Models.Container.dll

To base64string but im getting this instead 

RTpcUHJvamVjdHNcWW91dHViZS5NYW5hZ2VyXFlvdXR1YmUuTWFuYWdlci5Nb2RlbHMuQ29udGFpbmVyXG9ialxSZWxlYXNlXG5ldHN0YW5kYXJkMi4wXFlvdXR1YmUuTWFuYWdlci5Nb2RlbHMuQ29udGFpbmVyLmRsbA==

I want to get the same result as the first base64string which is 

RQA6AFwAUAByAG8AagBlAGMAdABzAFwAWQBvAHUAdAB1AGIAZQAuAE0AYQBuAGEAZwBlAHIAXABZAG8AdQB0AHUAYgBlAC4ATQBhAG4AYQBnAGUAcgAuAE0AbwBkAGUAbABzAC4AQwBvAG4AdABhAGkAbgBlAHIAXABvAGIAagBcAFIAZQBsAGUAYQBzAGUAXABuAGUAdABzAHQAYQBuAGQAYQByAGQAMgAuADAAXABZAG8AdQB0AHUAYgBlAC4ATQBhAG4AYQBnAGUAcgAuAE0AbwBkAGUAbABzAC4AQwBvAG4AdABhAGkAbgBlAHIALgBkAGwAbAAAAA==

How can i do it?

This is my code which is giving me a wrong result

  var bytes= Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(msg);
        return Convert.ToBase64String(bytes);
Solution

  • The problem here is the text encoding you're using.

    The first Base64 string you posted is encoded using Unicode with a nul terminator byte pair. The trailing 'AAAAA==' is a dead giveaway here. You can see it yourself by examining the byte array:

    var originalB64 = "RQA6AFwAUAByAG8AagBlAGMAdABzAFwAWQBvAHUAdAB1AGIAZQAuAE0AYQBuAGEAZwBlAHIAXABZAG8AdQB0AHUAYgBlAC4ATQBhAG4AYQBnAGUAcgAuAE0AbwBkAGUAbABzAC4AQwBvAG4AdABhAGkAbgBlAHIAXABvAGIAagBcAFIAZQBsAGUAYQBzAGUAXABuAGUAdABzAHQAYQBuAGQAYQByAGQAMgAuADAAXABZAG8AdQB0AHUAYgBlAC4ATQBhAG4AYQBnAGUAcgAuAE0AbwBkAGUAbABzAC4AQwBvAG4AdABhAGkAbgBlAHIALgBkAGwAbAAAAA==";
var bytes = Convert.FromBase64String(originalB64);

    Converting this to a string will give you a null-terminated string 125 characters long, with the last character being nul.

    Given a path that is not nul-terminated you can reproduce that string as follows:

    string path = @"E:\Projects\Youtube.Manager\Youtube.Manager.Models.Container\obj\Release\netstandard2.0\Youtube.Manager.Models.Container.dll";
string newB64 = Convert.ToBase64String(Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(path + "\0"));

    This matches the original Base64 string exactly in my tests.