java - How to convert byte array to string and vice versa?

Question

I have to convert a byte array to string in Android, but my byte array contains negative values.

If I convert that string again to byte array, values I am getting are different from original byte array values.

What can I do to get proper conversion? Code I am using to do the conversion is as follows:

// Code to convert byte arr to str:
byte[] by_original = {0,1,-2,3,-4,-5,6};
String str1 = new String(by_original);
System.out.println("str1 >> "+str1);

// Code to convert str to byte arr:
byte[] by_new = str1.getBytes();
for(int i=0;i<by_new.length;i++) 
System.out.println("by1["+i+"] >> "+str1);

I am stuck in this problem.

Answer 1

Your byte array must have some encoding. The encoding cannot be ASCII if you've got negative values. Once you figure that out, you can convert a set of bytes to a String using:

byte[] bytes = {...}
String str = new String(bytes, StandardCharsets.UTF_8); // for UTF-8 encoding

There are a bunch of encodings you can use, look at the supported encodings in the Oracle javadocs.