Vb.net - converting string of hex values to ASCII

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Good Morning! I have a project that basically grabs my character name from a running process using ReadProcessMemory and returns the values as Hex. I'm having trouble converting this string of Hex values to Ascii characters... Example Below!

Value I am returned:
4d-79-4e-61-6d-65-31-00-00-00
(note 10 character limit in naming convention ... ie: 00-00-00)

What I am actually looking for:
MyName1

Dim Name As String = _memManager.ReadString(BaseAddr - &H1D0)

Public Function ReadString(ByVal addr As IntPtr) As String
    'Int32 data type-- is 32 bits long, 4 bytes.
    Dim _dataBytes(10) As Byte
    ReadProcessMemory(_targetProcessHandle, addr, _dataBytes, 10, vbNull)
    Return BitConverter.ToString(_dataBytes, 0)
End Function

What I have tried:

I've tried several suggestions online such as hex2ascii and .tostring but no luck!

Posted 21-Apr-17 5:20am

Member 13143502

Updated 21-Apr-17 9:00am

v2

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2 solutions

Solution 1

It depends on exactly what you are getting: if it's the bytes 4d, 79, 4e, ... then it's fairly simple:

VB

Dim s As String = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(_dataBytes)

If it's a string: "4d-79-4e-61-6d-65-31-00-00-00" then it's more complex: first convert that to bytes, then convert the bytes to a string:

VB

Public Shared Function GetBytes(value As String) As Byte()
	Return Array.ConvertAll(value.Split("-"C), Function(s) Byte.Parse(s, System.Globalization.NumberStyles.HexNumber))
End Function

Posted 21-Apr-17 5:45am

OriginalGriff

Comments

Member 13143502 21-Apr-17 12:45pm

The value that's returned from my function:

Dim Name As String = _memManager.ReadString(BaseAddr - &H1D0)

Returns this value:
4A-6F-65-4D-61-6D-6D-61-44-58-00

Actual Text:
JoeMammaDX

OriginalGriff 21-Apr-17 13:35pm

So pass it to the GetBytes function I gave you, and then convert it to a string with the GetString.

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Member 13143502 · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-21T09:00:00

I was able to resolve this issue by modifying the GetBytes function

Public Function ReadString(ByVal addr As IntPtr) As String
    'Int32 data type-- is 32 bits long, 4 bytes.
    Dim _dataBytes(10) As Byte
    ReadProcessMemory(_targetProcessHandle, addr, _dataBytes, 10, vbNull)
    Return System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetString(_dataBytes)
End Function