Convert byte array to string in C/C++

This post will discuss how to convert byte array to string in C/C++.

1. Using `memcpy()` function

The memcpy() function performs a binary copy of the arrays of POD (Plain Old Data) type like int, char, etc. It can be used to convert a byte array to a C-string, as follows. Note that C-Strings are NULL-terminated. Therefore, don’t forget to allocate space for a trailing NULL byte.

#include <iostream>

#include <cstring>

int main()

{

unsigned char bytes[] = { 72, 101, 108, 108, 111 };

int n = sizeof(bytes);

char chars[n + 1];

memcpy(chars, bytes, n);

chars[n] = '\0'; // Null-terminate the string

std::cout << chars;

return 0;

}

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Output:

Hello

2. Using String Constructor

To construct a C++ string from a byte array, use the string constructor. The constructor string (const char* b, size_t n) copies the first n characters from array b. The following is a simple example demonstrating its usage.

#include <iostream>

#include <string>

int main()

{

const char bytes[] = { 72, 101, 108, 108, 111 };

std::string s(bytes, sizeof(bytes));

std::cout << s;

return 0;

}

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Output:

Hello

That’s all about converting byte array to string in C/C++.

Convert byte array to string in C/C++

1. Using memcpy() function

2. Using String Constructor

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1. Using `memcpy()` function