Binary and hexadecimal conversion

Daily Knowledge Drop

The Convert class can be used to convert any integer value to it's corresponding value of a different base.

Binary (base 2), Octal (base 8), Decimal (base 10) and Hexadecimal (base 16) are supported.

Convert class

Using the Convert class to perform the conversion is incredibly simple:

var intValue = 642;

// use the ToString method, specifying the new base
var binary = Convert.ToString(intValue, 2);
var octal = Convert.ToString(intValue, 8);
var hex = Convert.ToString(intValue, 16);

Console.WriteLine(binary);
Console.WriteLine(octal);
Console.WriteLine(hex);

The output is as follows:

1010000010
1202
282

Negative values are also supported:

var intValue = 642;

// use the ToString method, specifying the new base
var binaryNeg = Convert.ToString(intValue * 1, 2);
var octalNeg = Convert.ToString(intValue * -1, 8);
var hexNeg = Convert.ToString(intValue * -1, 16);

Console.WriteLine(binaryNeg);
Console.WriteLine(octalNeg);
Console.WriteLine(hexNeg);

The output is as follows:

11111111111111111111110101111110
37777776576
fffffd7e

And that's all there is to it - simple and occasionally useful!

Notes

In my almost 20 years of programming, I don't think I've ever had to perform these kinds of conversions (outside of assignments at university), so this functionality is probably not useful for every day development for most applications - however when the need does arise, it's useful to know it can be easily implemented.

References

Khalid Abuhakmeh Tweet

Daily Drop 99: 20-06-2022

At the start of 2022 I set myself the goal of learning one new coding related piece of knowledge a day.
It could be anything - some.NET / C# functionality I wasn't aware of, a design practice, a cool new coding technique, or just something I find interesting. It could be something I knew at one point but had forgotten, or something completely new, which I may or may never actually use.

The Daily Drop is a record of these pieces of knowledge - writing about and summarizing them helps re-enforce the information for myself, as well as potentially helps others learn something new as well.