You can restore bytes[]from a converted string, here is one way to do this:
public String fromHex(String hex) throws UnsupportedEncodingException {
hex = hex.replaceAll("^(00)+", "");
byte[] bytes = new byte[hex.length() / 2];
for (int i = 0; i < hex.length(); i += 2) {
bytes[i / 2] = (byte) ((Character.digit(hex.charAt(i), 16) << 4) + Character.digit(hex.charAt(i + 1), 16));
}
return new String(bytes);
}
Another way is to use DatatypeConverter, from the package javax.xml.bind:
public String fromHex(String hex) throws UnsupportedEncodingException {
hex = hex.replaceAll("^(00)+", "");
byte[] bytes = DatatypeConverter.parseHexBinary(hex);
return new String(bytes, "UTF-8");
}
Unit tests to verify:
@Test
public void test() throws UnsupportedEncodingException {
String[] samples = {
"hello",
"all your base now belongs to us, welcome our machine overlords"
};
for (String sample : samples) {
assertEquals(sample, fromHex(toHex(sample)));
}
}
: 00 fromHex - "%040x" toHex.
%x,
fromHex:
hex = hex.replaceAll("^(00)+", "");