Convert Binary to String

Question

I want to convert a password which is stored in binary to normal ASCII form so that i can read it. I need a VBscript for that and script should also return this de-crypted p

Answer 1

If you are dealing with a byte array, you must know the character encoding before you can convert it to string. Without that knowledge the bytes will be converted to the wrong characters.

The ADODB.Stream object can handle byte arrays. Here is a function that that does that:

Const adTypeBinary = 1
Const adTypeText = 2
Const adModeReadWrite = 3

Function BytesToString(bytes, charset)
    With CreateObject("ADODB.Stream")
        .Mode = adModeReadWrite
        .Type = adTypeBinary
        .Open
        .Write bytes
        .Position = 0
        .Type = adTypeText
        .Charset = charset
        BytesToString = .ReadText
    End With
End Function

And here is how to use it:

MsgBox BytesToString(binary, "Windows-1252")

For the sake of completeness, this is the reverse operation:

Function StringToBytes(str, charset)
    With CreateObject("ADODB.Stream")
        .Mode = adModeReadWrite
        .Type = adTypeText
        .Charset = charset
        .Open
        .WriteText str
        .Position = 0
        .Type = adTypeBinary
        StringToBytes = .Read
    End With
End Function

---

Since your input seems to be a string like "00110001 00110010 00110011 00110100", here is a function to convert that to a byte array, which you can then use with BytesToString() shown above:

Function BinaryStringToBytes(binaryStr)
    Dim b, n, i, l

    l = GetLocale
    SetLocale 1031

    With CreateObject("ADODB.Stream")
        .Mode = adModeReadWrite
        .Charset = "Windows-1252"
        .Type = adTypeText
        .Open
        For Each b In Split(binaryStr, " ")
            If Len(b) <> 8 Or Replace(Replace(b, "0", ""), "1", "") <> "" Then
                ' invalid procedure call or argument
                Err.Raise 5, "BinaryStringToBytes", _
                    "Only stings of 8-blocks of 0s and 1s, " & _
                    "separated by a single space are accepted."
            End If
            n = 0
            For i = 0 To 7
                n = n + Mid(b, 8 - i, 1) * 2^i
            Next
            .WriteText Chr(n)
        Next
        .Position = 0
        .Type = adTypeBinary
        BinaryStringToBytes = .Read
    End With

    SetLocale l
End Function

Usage

Dim input, output

input = "00110001 00110010 00110011 00110100"
output = BytesToString(BinaryStringToBytes(input), "Windows-1252")

MsgBox output  ' -> "1234"

And, more importantly, it can handle multi-byte encodings properly:

input = "00110001 00110010 00110011 00110100 11000011 10100100"
output = BytesToString(BinaryStringToBytes(input), "UTF-8")

MsgBox output ' -> "1234ä"