Convert the contents of a byte array to string

Question

I have a byte array that contains the data of an uploaded file which happens to be a Resume of an employee(.doc file). I did it with the help of the following lines of code

    AppSettingsReader rd = new AppSettingsReader();

    FileUpload arr = (FileUpload)upresume;
    Byte[] arrByte = null;
    if (arr.HasFile && arr.PostedFile != null)
    {
        //To create a PostedFile
        HttpPostedFile File = upresume.PostedFile;
        //Create byte Array with file len
        arrByte = new Byte[File.ContentLength];
        //force the control to load data in array
        File.InputStream.Read(arrByte, 0, File.ContentLength);
    }

Now, I would like to get the contents of the uploaded file(resume) in string format either from the byte array or any other methods. PS: 'contents' literally refers to the contents of the resume; for example if the resume(uploaded file) contains a word 'programming', I would like to have the same word contained in the string. Please help me to solve this.

I found this: [byte[] to string in c#](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1003275/byte-to-string-in-c-sharp) — Lukasz, Apr 09 '13 at 17:48
Search netted me [this](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11654562/how-convert-byte-array-to-string). — Brian, Apr 09 '13 at 17:51
Are you looking for a single string that contains all of the text content (but none of the other binary data associated with the file), or an array of strings for each "word" in the file? — Jeffrey Blake, Apr 09 '13 at 17:52
@Lukasz But a UTF-8 file is _very_ different from a Word file. — Jeppe Stig Nielsen, Apr 09 '13 at 17:52
You cannot do it reliably without knowing the encoding and the file format: without these two, you've got yourself a perfectly useless stream of bytes. [Link to an interesting reading on the subject](http://kunststube.net/encoding/). — Sergey Kalinichenko, Apr 09 '13 at 17:52
@Brian It's a `.doc` file, that is Micorsoft Office Word format. — Jeppe Stig Nielsen, Apr 09 '13 at 17:53
Why don't you just open the file in Word or another capable program (maybe LibreOffice Writer)? — Jeppe Stig Nielsen, Apr 09 '13 at 17:55
@JeffreyBlake..Yes I'm looking for a single string that contains all the text content — Rohit Kiran, Apr 09 '13 at 18:12
@dasblinkenlight..I've mentioned the extension of the file in my question. It is a Microsoft word document file. — Rohit Kiran, Apr 09 '13 at 18:15

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 09 '13 at 21:43

I worked on a similar project a few years ago. Long story short... I ended up reconstructing the file and saving it on the server, then programmatically convert it to pdf, and then index the contents of the pdf, this proved much easier in practice at the time.

Alternatively, if you can restrict resume uploads to docx file format, you can use Microsofts OpenXML library to parse and index the content very easily. But in practict this may cause usability issues for users of the web site.

Convert the contents of a byte array to string

1 Answers1