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

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?

Check out Hex.encodeHexString from Apache Commons Codec.

import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Hex;

String hex = Hex.encodeHexString(bytes);

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.

A simple approach would be to check how many digits are output by Integer.toHexString() and add a leading zero to each byte if needed. Something like this:

public static String toHexString(byte[] bytes) {
    StringBuilder hexString = new StringBuilder();

    for (int i = 0; i < bytes.length; i++) {
        String hex = Integer.toHexString(0xFF & bytes[i]);
        if (hex.length() == 1) {
            hexString.append('0');
        }
        hexString.append(hex);
    }

    return hexString.toString();
}

The method javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter.printHexBinary(), part of the Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB), was a convenient way to convert a byte[] to a hex string. The DatatypeConverter class also included many other useful data-manipulation methods.

In Java 8 and earlier, JAXB was part of the Java standard library. It was deprecated with Java 9 and removed with Java 11, as part of an effort to move all Java EE packages into their own libraries. It's a long story. Now, javax.xml.bind doesn't exist, and if you want to use JAXB, which contains DatatypeConverter, you'll need to install the JAXB API and JAXB Runtime from Maven.

Example usage:

byte bytes[] = {(byte)0, (byte)0, (byte)134, (byte)0, (byte)61};
String hex = javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter.printHexBinary(bytes);

Will result in:

000086003D