How to convert hex string into a bytes array, and a bytes array in the hex string?

Convert a hex string to a byte array and vice versa

note: implementation from crypto-js

// Convert a hex string to a byte array
function hexToBytes(hex) {
    for (var bytes = [], c = 0; c < hex.length; c += 2)
    bytes.push(parseInt(hex.substr(c, 2), 16));
    return bytes;
}

// Convert a byte array to a hex string
function bytesToHex(bytes) {
    for (var hex = [], i = 0; i < bytes.length; i++) {
        var current = bytes[i] < 0 ? bytes[i] + 256 : bytes[i];
        hex.push((current >>> 4).toString(16));
        hex.push((current & 0xF).toString(16));
    }
    return hex.join("");
}

Update: Scroll down for solution... Live Demo

The issue: you are using a lossy conversion to hex, which cannot be reversed.

var p = parseHexString(createHexString(rsa_privk[0]));

This will never be same as rsa_privk[0].

Because, createHexString() only uses the last 2 bytes from each array element.

Example:

rsa_privk[0] : [123676133, 198914513, 129998601, 245147334, 11918451, 206998232, 96766191, 75984899, 177840095, 106709334, 10180427, 208237547, 119814814, 127003446, 189062377, 84099480, 220452154, 250519075, 267883908, 115471915, 165124106, 238628722, 169382478, 42320122, 95982405, 80725759, 89608310, 85166267, 200925925, 254033325, 86971506, 191278317, 127411298, 180195794, 142776693, 188738169, 39016]

createHexString(rsa_privk[0]) : e5d109c673d8ef03df564beb9e36e9983a23842b0a724efa45ff76bbe5ad72ed62d2757968

parseHexString(createHexString(rsa_privk[0])) : [229, 209, 9, 198, 115, 216, 239, 3, 223, 86, 75, 235, 158, 54, 233, 152, 58, 35, 132, 43, 10, 114, 78, 250, 69, 255, 118, 187, 229, 173, 114, 237, 98, 210, 117, 121, 104] 

---

Update : Working Solution...

The two functions... the hex always contains 8 byte blocks, each for each element in the array...

function parseHexString(str) { 
    var result = [];
    while (str.length >= 8) { 
        result.push(parseInt(str.substring(0, 8), 16));

        str = str.substring(8, str.length);
    }

    return result;
}

function createHexString(arr) {
    var result = "";
    var z;

    for (var i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
        var str = arr[i].toString(16);

        z = 8 - str.length + 1;
        str = Array(z).join("0") + str;

        result += str;
    }

    return result;
}

Test code...

function test() {   
    a = [123676133, 198914513, 129998601, 245147334, 11918451, 206998232, 96766191, 75984899, 177840095, 106709334, 10180427, 208237547, 119814814, 127003446, 189062377, 84099480, 220452154, 250519075, 267883908, 115471915, 165124106, 238628722, 169382478, 42320122, 95982405, 80725759, 89608310, 85166267, 200925925, 254033325, 86971506, 191278317, 127411298, 180195794, 142776693, 188738169, 39016];

    console.log("Input");
    console.log(a);

    b = createHexString(a);

    console.log("Hex");
    console.log(b);

    c = parseHexString(b); 

    console.log("Output");
    console.log(c);

    if(checkIfEqual(a, c)) {
        alert("Same");
    }
}

function checkIfEqual(arr1, arr2) {
    if (arr1.length != arr2.length) {
        return false;
    }
    //sort them first, then join them and just compare the strings
    return arr1.sort().join() == arr2.sort().join();
}

I just wanted to chime in that there is a library at https://github.com/dcodeIO/bytebuffer.js to easily help with conversions like this, and thus you don't need to write your own functions (which could possibly not be the most optimal, or be more optimal if your solution was reviewed through the open source community on GitHub).

var ByteBuffer = require("bytebuffer");

var bb = ByteBuffer.fromHex(yourHexString);

// need to convert it to base 64?
// bb.toBase64();

See https://github.com/dcodeIO/bytebuffer.js/wiki/API#bytebufferfromhexstr-littleendian-noassert for the API documention and more insight on the methods I used above.