How to convert bytes32 to string? [duplicate]

Question

I input an string data as bytes32 type. Now i cannot return that string in readable form? any way to do that?

Answer 1

// take bytes32 and return a string
function toShortString(bytes32 _data)
  pure
  public
  returns (string)
{
  // create new bytes with a length of 32
  // needs to be bytes type rather than bytes32 in order to be writeable
  bytes memory _bytesContainer = new bytes(32);
  // uint to keep track of actual character length of string
  // bytes32 is always 32 characters long the string may be shorter
  uint256 _charCount = 0;
  // loop through every element in bytes32
  for (uint256 _bytesCounter = 0; _bytesCounter < 32; _bytesCounter++) {
    /*
    TLDR: takes a single character from bytes based on counter
    convert bytes32 data to uint in order to increase the number enough to
    shift bytes further left while pushing out leftmost bytes
    then convert uint256 data back to bytes32
    then convert to bytes1 where everything but the leftmost hex value (byte)
    is cutoff leaving only the leftmost byte
    */
    bytes1 _char = bytes1(bytes32(uint256(_data) * 2 ** (8 * _bytesCounter)));
    // if the character is not empty
    if (_char != 0) {
      // add to bytes representing string
      _bytesContainer[_charCount] = _char;
      // increment count so we know length later
      _charCount++;
    }
  }

  // create dynamically sized bytes array to use for trimming
  bytes memory _bytesContainerTrimmed = new bytes(_charCount);

  // loop through for character length of string
  for (uint256 _charCounter = 0; _charCounter < _charCount; _charCounter++) {
    // add each character to trimmed bytes container, leaving out extra
    _bytesContainerTrimmed[_charCounter] = _bytesContainer[_charCounter];
  }

  // return correct length string with no padding
  return string(_bytesContainerTrimmed);
}

Answer 2

On the Solidity side, it's usually best to just leave the bytes32 as-is. Do the conversion on the client side. E.g. in web3.js, use web3.toAscii(...) (web3.js 0.2x.x) or web3.utils.hexToAscii(...) (web3.js 1.0.0-beta).