Base32 Decoding

I have a base32 string which I need to convert to a byte array. And I'm having trouble finding a conversion method in the .NET framework. I can find methods for base64 but not for base32.

Convert.FromBase64String – something like this for base32 would be perfect.

Is there such a method in the framework or do I have to roll my own?


Solution 1:

I had a need for a base32 encoder/decoder, so I spent a couple hours this afternoon throwing this together. I believe it conforms to the standards listed here: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4648#section-6.

public class Base32Encoding
{
    public static byte[] ToBytes(string input)
    {
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(input))
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("input");
        }

        input = input.TrimEnd('='); //remove padding characters
        int byteCount = input.Length * 5 / 8; //this must be TRUNCATED
        byte[] returnArray = new byte[byteCount];
        
        byte curByte = 0, bitsRemaining = 8;
        int mask = 0, arrayIndex = 0;

        foreach (char c in input)
        {
            int cValue = CharToValue(c);

            if (bitsRemaining > 5)
            {
                mask = cValue << (bitsRemaining - 5);
                curByte = (byte)(curByte | mask);
                bitsRemaining -= 5;
            }
            else
            {
                mask = cValue >> (5 - bitsRemaining);
                curByte = (byte)(curByte | mask);
                returnArray[arrayIndex++] = curByte;
                curByte = (byte)(cValue << (3 + bitsRemaining));
                bitsRemaining += 3;
            }
        }

        //if we didn't end with a full byte
        if (arrayIndex != byteCount)
        {
            returnArray[arrayIndex] = curByte;
        }

        return returnArray;
    }

    public static string ToString(byte[] input)
    {
        if (input == null || input.Length == 0)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("input");
        }

        int charCount = (int)Math.Ceiling(input.Length / 5d) * 8;
        char[] returnArray = new char[charCount];

        byte nextChar = 0, bitsRemaining = 5;
        int arrayIndex = 0;

        foreach (byte b in input)
        {
            nextChar = (byte)(nextChar | (b >> (8 - bitsRemaining)));
            returnArray[arrayIndex++] = ValueToChar(nextChar);
            
            if (bitsRemaining < 4)
            {
                nextChar = (byte)((b >> (3 - bitsRemaining)) & 31);
                returnArray[arrayIndex++] = ValueToChar(nextChar);
                bitsRemaining += 5;
            }
            
            bitsRemaining -= 3;
            nextChar = (byte)((b << bitsRemaining) & 31);
        }

        //if we didn't end with a full char
        if (arrayIndex != charCount)
        {
            returnArray[arrayIndex++] = ValueToChar(nextChar);
            while (arrayIndex != charCount) returnArray[arrayIndex++] = '='; //padding
        }

        return new string(returnArray);
    }

    private static int CharToValue(char c)
    {
        int value = (int)c;
        
        //65-90 == uppercase letters
        if (value < 91 && value > 64)
        {
            return value - 65;
        }
        //50-55 == numbers 2-7
        if (value < 56 && value > 49)
        {
            return value - 24;
        }
        //97-122 == lowercase letters
        if (value < 123 && value > 96)
        {
            return value - 97;
        }

        throw new ArgumentException("Character is not a Base32 character.", "c");
    }

    private static char ValueToChar(byte b)
    {
        if (b < 26)
        {
            return (char)(b + 65);
        }

        if (b < 32)
        {
            return (char)(b + 24);
        }

        throw new ArgumentException("Byte is not a value Base32 value.", "b");
    }

}

Solution 2:

Check this FromBase32String implementation for .NET found here.


Edit: The above link was dead; you can find an archived copy at archive.org

The actual code read:

using System;
using System.Text;

public sealed class Base32 {

      // the valid chars for the encoding
      private static string ValidChars = "QAZ2WSX3" + "EDC4RFV5" + "TGB6YHN7" + "UJM8K9LP";

      /// <summary>
      /// Converts an array of bytes to a Base32-k string.
      /// </summary>
      public static string ToBase32String(byte[] bytes) {
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();         // holds the base32 chars
            byte index;
            int hi = 5;
            int currentByte = 0;

            while (currentByte < bytes.Length) {
                  // do we need to use the next byte?
                  if (hi > 8) {
                        // get the last piece from the current byte, shift it to the right
                        // and increment the byte counter
                        index = (byte)(bytes[currentByte++] >> (hi - 5));
                        if (currentByte != bytes.Length) {
                              // if we are not at the end, get the first piece from
                              // the next byte, clear it and shift it to the left
                              index = (byte)(((byte)(bytes[currentByte] << (16 - hi)) >> 3) | index);
                        }

                        hi -= 3;
                  } else if(hi == 8) { 
                        index = (byte)(bytes[currentByte++] >> 3);
                        hi -= 3; 
                  } else {

                        // simply get the stuff from the current byte
                        index = (byte)((byte)(bytes[currentByte] << (8 - hi)) >> 3);
                        hi += 5;
                  }

                  sb.Append(ValidChars[index]);
            }

            return sb.ToString();
      }


      /// <summary>
      /// Converts a Base32-k string into an array of bytes.
      /// </summary>
      /// <exception cref="System.ArgumentException">
      /// Input string <paramref name="s">s</paramref> contains invalid Base32-k characters.
      /// </exception>
      public static byte[] FromBase32String(string str) {
            int numBytes = str.Length * 5 / 8;
            byte[] bytes = new Byte[numBytes];

            // all UPPERCASE chars
            str = str.ToUpper();

            int bit_buffer;
            int currentCharIndex;
            int bits_in_buffer;

            if (str.Length < 3) {
                  bytes[0] = (byte)(ValidChars.IndexOf(str[0]) | ValidChars.IndexOf(str[1]) << 5);
                  return bytes;
            }

            bit_buffer = (ValidChars.IndexOf(str[0]) | ValidChars.IndexOf(str[1]) << 5);
            bits_in_buffer = 10;
            currentCharIndex = 2;
            for (int i = 0; i < bytes.Length; i++) {
                  bytes[i] = (byte)bit_buffer;
                  bit_buffer >>= 8;
                  bits_in_buffer -= 8;
                  while (bits_in_buffer < 8 && currentCharIndex < str.Length) {
                        bit_buffer |= ValidChars.IndexOf(str[currentCharIndex++]) << bits_in_buffer;
                        bits_in_buffer += 5;
                  }
            }

            return bytes;
      }
}

Solution 3:

Here are my functions for encoding and decoding. I feel that they are much shorter and concise than the other suggestions. So if you need a small one, try these.

public static string BytesToBase32(byte[] bytes) {
    const string alphabet = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ234567";
    string output = "";
    for (int bitIndex = 0; bitIndex < bytes.Length * 8; bitIndex += 5) {
        int dualbyte = bytes[bitIndex / 8] << 8;
        if (bitIndex / 8 + 1 < bytes.Length)
            dualbyte |= bytes[bitIndex / 8 + 1];
        dualbyte = 0x1f & (dualbyte >> (16 - bitIndex % 8 - 5));
        output += alphabet[dualbyte];
    }

    return output;
}

public static byte[] Base32ToBytes(string base32) {
    const string alphabet = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ234567";
    List<byte> output = new List<byte>();
    char[] bytes = base32.ToCharArray();
    for (int bitIndex = 0; bitIndex < base32.Length * 5; bitIndex += 8) {
        int dualbyte = alphabet.IndexOf(bytes[bitIndex / 5]) << 10;
        if (bitIndex / 5 + 1 < bytes.Length)
            dualbyte |= alphabet.IndexOf(bytes[bitIndex / 5 + 1]) << 5;
        if (bitIndex / 5 + 2 < bytes.Length)
            dualbyte |= alphabet.IndexOf(bytes[bitIndex / 5 + 2]);

        dualbyte = 0xff & (dualbyte >> (15 - bitIndex % 5 - 8));
        output.Add((byte)(dualbyte));
    }
    return output.ToArray();
}