Question

I got a boolean list with 92 booleans, I want the list to be converted to a string, I thought I ll take 8 booleans(bits) and put them in a Byte(8 bits) and then use the ASCII to convert it the byte value to a char then add the chars to a string. However after googeling for more then 2 hours, no luck atm. I tried converting the List to a Byte list but it didn t work either ^^.

String strbyte = null;
for (int x = 0; x != tmpboolist.Count; x++) //tmpboolist is the 90+- boolean list
{
   //this loop checks for true then puts a 1 or a 0 in the string(strbyte)
   if (tmpboolist[x])
   {
      strbyte = strbyte + '1'; 
   }
   else
   {
      strbyte = strbyte + '0';
   }
}

//here I try to convert the string to a byte list but no success
//no success because the testbytearray has the SAME size as the 
//tmpboolist(but it should have less since 8 booleans should be 1 Byte)
//however all the 'Bytes' are 48 & 49 (which is 1 and 0 according to
//http://www.asciitable.com/)
Byte[] testbytearray = Encoding.Default.GetBytes(strbyte); 

PS If anyone has a better suggestion on how to code & decode a Boolean list to a String?
(Because I want people to share their boolean list with a string rather then a list of 90 1 and 0s.)

EDIT: got it working now! ty all for helping

string text = new string(tmpboolist.Select(x => x ? '1' : '0').ToArray());
byte[] bytes = getBitwiseByteArray(text); //http://stackoverflow.com/a/6756231/1184013
String Arraycode = Convert.ToBase64String(bytes);
System.Windows.MessageBox.Show(Arraycode);
//first it makes a string out of the boolean list then it uses the converter to make it an Byte[](array), then we use the base64 encoding to make the byte[] a String.(that can be decoded later)

I ll look into the encoding32 later, ty for all the help again 🙂

Answer 1

You should store your boolean values in a BitArray.

var values = new BitArray(92);
values[0] = false;
values[1] = true;
values[2] = true;
...

---

Then you can convert the BitArray to a byte array

var bytes = new byte[(values.Length + 7) / 8];
values.CopyTo(bytes);

and the byte array to a Base64 string

var result = Convert.ToBase64String(bytes);

Reversely, you can convert a Base64 string to a byte array

var bytes2 = Convert.FromBase64String(result);

and the byte array to a BitArray

var values2 = new BitArray(bytes2);

---

The Base64 string looks like this: "Liwd7bRv6TMY2cNE". This is probably a bit unhandy for sharing between people; have a look at human-oriented base-32 encoding:

Anticipated uses of these [base-32 strings] include cut-
and-paste, text editing (e.g. in HTML files), manual transcription via a
keyboard, manual transcription via pen-and-paper, vocal transcription over
phone or radio, etc.

The desiderata for such an encoding are:

• minimizing transcription errors — e.g. the well-known problem of confusing
  ‘0’ with ‘O’
• embedding into other structures — e.g. search engines, structured or
  marked-up text, file systems, command shells
• brevity — Shorter [strings] are better than longer ones.
• ergonomics — Human users (especially non-technical ones) should find the
  [strings] as easy and pleasant as possible. The uglier the [strings] looks, the worse.