Converting a hex string to a byte array

Question

What is the best way to convert a variable length hex string e.g. \"01A1\" to a byte array containing that data.

i.e converting this:

st         


        

Answer 1

#include 
#include 
#include 

int main() {
    std::string s("313233");
    char delim = ',';
    int len = s.size();
    for(int i = 2; i < len; i += 3, ++len) s.insert(i, 1, delim);
    std::istringstream is(s);
    std::ostringstream os;
    is >> std::hex;
    int n;
    while (is >> n) {
        char c = (char)n;
        os << std::string(&c, 1);
        if(is.peek() == delim) is.ignore();
    }

    // std::string form
    std::string byte_string = os.str();
    std::cout << byte_string << std::endl;
    printf("%s\n", byte_string.c_str());

    // std::vector form
    std::vector byte_vector(byte_string.begin(), byte_string.end());
    byte_vector.push_back('\0'); // needed for a c-string
    printf("%s\n", byte_vector.data());
}

The output is

123
123
123

'1' == 0x31, etc.