Introduction:

Converting binary data to a human-readable string is a fundamental task that often arises in various scenarios, such as handling file contents, encryption, and data transmission. In this blog, we will explore multiple methods to convert binary to string in PHP.

Method 1: Using pack() and unpack() Functions

PHP provides the pack() and unpack() functions to convert binary data between different formats. pack() allows us to create a binary string from given data, while unpack() does the opposite – it extracts data from a binary string based on a specified format.

$binaryData = "\x48\x65\x6c\x6c\x6f\x20\x57\x6f\x72\x6c\x64"; // Example binary data
$asciiString = unpack('A*', $binaryData);
echo $asciiString[1]; // Output: "Hello World"

Method 2: Using bin2hex() and hex2bin() Functions

Another approach to convert binary data to a string is by representing the binary data as a hexadecimal string. PHP provides bin2hex() to convert binary data to its hexadecimal representation and hex2bin() to revert it back to binary.

$binaryData = "\x48\x65\x6c\x6c\x6f\x20\x57\x6f\x72\x6c\x64"; // Example binary data
$hexString = bin2hex($binaryData);
echo hex2bin($hexString); // Output: "Hello World"

Method 3: Using base64_encode() and base64_decode() Functions

Base64 encoding is a popular technique to represent binary data as an ASCII string. PHP provides base64_encode() to encode binary data, and base64_decode() to decode the base64-encoded string back to its original binary form.

$binaryData = "\x48\x65\x6c\x6c\x6f\x20\x57\x6f\x72\x6c\x64"; // Example binary data
$base64String = base64_encode($binaryData);
echo base64_decode($base64String); // Output: "Hello World"

Method 4: Manually Converting Binary to String

In situations where built-in PHP functions are restricted or not available, you can manually convert binary data to a string using loops and bitwise operations.

$binaryData = "\x48\x65\x6c\x6c\x6f\x20\x57\x6f\x72\x6c\x64"; // Example binary data
$asciiString = '';
for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($binaryData); $i++) {
    $asciiString .= chr(ord($binaryData[$i]));
}
echo $asciiString; // Output: "Hello World"

Conclusion:

In this blog, we explored multiple methods to convert binary data to a string in PHP. We discussed using pack() and unpack() functions, bin2hex() and hex2bin() functions, base64_encode() and base64_decode() functions, as well as a manual approach using loops and bitwise operations.