CryptBinaryToString function

The CryptBinaryToString function converts an array of bytes into a formatted string.

Syntax

BOOL WINAPI CryptBinaryToString(
  _In_      const BYTE   *pbBinary,
  _In_            DWORD  cbBinary,
  _In_            DWORD  dwFlags,
  _Out_opt_       LPTSTR pszString,
  _Inout_         DWORD  *pcchString
);

Parameters

pbBinary [in]

A pointer to the array of bytes to be converted into a string.

cbBinary [in]

The number of elements in the pbBinary array.

dwFlags [in]

Specifies the format of the resulting formatted string. This parameter can be one of the following values.

Value	Meaning
CRYPT_STRING_BASE64HEADER 0x00000000	Base64, with certificate beginning and ending headers.
CRYPT_STRING_BASE64 0x00000001	Base64, without headers.
CRYPT_STRING_BINARY 0x00000002	Pure binary copy.
CRYPT_STRING_BASE64REQUESTHEADER 0x00000003	Base64, with request beginning and ending headers.
CRYPT_STRING_HEX 0x00000004	Hexadecimal only.
CRYPT_STRING_HEXASCII 0x00000005	Hexadecimal, with ASCII character display.
CRYPT_STRING_BASE64X509CRLHEADER 0x00000009	Base64, with X.509 CRL beginning and ending headers.
CRYPT_STRING_HEXADDR 0x0000000a	Hexadecimal, with address display.
CRYPT_STRING_HEXASCIIADDR 0x0000000b	Hexadecimal, with ASCII character and address display.
CRYPT_STRING_HEXRAW 0x0000000c	A raw hexadecimal string. Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP:  This value is not supported.
CRYPT_STRING_STRICT 0x20000000	Enforce strict decoding of ASN.1 text formats. Some ASN.1 binary BLOBS can have the first few bytes of the BLOB incorrectly interpreted as Base64 text. In this case, the rest of the text is ignored. Use this flag to enforce complete decoding of the BLOB. Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP:  This value is not supported.

 

In addition to the values above, one or more of the following values can be specified to modify the behavior of the function.

Value	Meaning
CRYPT_STRING_NOCRLF 0x40000000	Do not append any new line characters to the encoded string. The default behavior is to use a carriage return/line feed (CR/LF) pair (0x0D/0x0A) to represent a new line. Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP:  This value is not supported.
CRYPT_STRING_NOCR 0x80000000	Only use the line feed (LF) character (0x0A) for a new line. The default behavior is to use a CR/LF pair (0x0D/0x0A) to represent a new line.

 

pszString [out, optional]

A pointer to a buffer that receives the converted string. To calculate the number of characters that must be allocated to hold the returned string, set this parameter to NULL. The function will place the required number of characters, including the terminating NULL character, in the value pointed to by pcchString.

pcchString [in, out]

A pointer to a DWORD variable that contains the size, in TCHARs, of the pszString buffer. If pszString is NULL, the function calculates the length of the return string (including the terminating null character) in TCHARs and returns it in this parameter. If pszString is not NULL and big enough, the function converts the binary data into a specified string format including the terminating null character, but pcchString receives the length in TCHARs, not including the terminating null character.

Return value

If the function succeeds, the function returns nonzero (TRUE).

If the function fails, it returns zero (FALSE).

Remarks

With the exception of when CRYPT_STRING_BINARY encoding is used, all strings are appended with a new line sequence. By default, the new line sequence is a CR/LF pair (0x0D/0x0A). If the dwFlags parameter contains the CRYPT_STRING_NOCR flag, then the new line sequence is a LF character (0x0A). If the dwFlags parameter contains the CRYPT_STRING_NOCRLF flag, then no new line sequence is appended to the string.

Requirements

See also

CryptStringToBinary