guid to base64, for URL

Question

Question: is there a better way to do that?

VB.Net

Function GuidToBase64(ByVal guid As Guid) As String
    Return Convert.ToBase64String(guid.ToByteArray).Replace("/", "-").Replace("+", "_").Replace("=", "")
End Function

Function Base64ToGuid(ByVal base64 As String) As Guid
    Dim guid As Guid
    base64 = base64.Replace("-", "/").Replace("_", "+") & "=="

    Try
        guid = New Guid(Convert.FromBase64String(base64))
    Catch ex As Exception
        Throw New Exception("Bad Base64 conversion to GUID", ex)
    End Try

    Return guid
End Function

C#

public string GuidToBase64(Guid guid)
{
    return Convert.ToBase64String(guid.ToByteArray()).Replace("/", "-").Replace("+", "_").Replace("=", "");
}

public Guid Base64ToGuid(string base64)
{
   Guid guid = default(Guid);
   base64 = base64.Replace("-", "/").Replace("_", "+") + "==";

   try {
       guid = new Guid(Convert.FromBase64String(base64));
   }
   catch (Exception ex) {
       throw new Exception("Bad Base64 conversion to GUID", ex);
   }

   return guid;
}

Answer 1

You might want to check out this site: http://prettycode.org/2009/11/12/short-guid/

It looks very close to what you're doing.

public class ShortGuid
{
    private readonly Guid guid;
    private readonly string value;

    /// <summary>Create a 22-character case-sensitive short GUID.</summary>
    public ShortGuid(Guid guid)
    {
        if (guid == null)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("guid");
        }

        this.guid = guid;
        this.value = Convert.ToBase64String(guid.ToByteArray())
            .Substring(0, 22)
            .Replace("/", "_")
            .Replace("+", "-");
    }

    /// <summary>Get the short GUID as a string.</summary>
    public override string ToString()
    {
        return this.value;
    }

    /// <summary>Get the Guid object from which the short GUID was created.</summary>
    public Guid ToGuid()
    {
        return this.guid;
    }

    /// <summary>Get a short GUID as a Guid object.</summary>
    /// <exception cref="System.ArgumentNullException"></exception>
    /// <exception cref="System.FormatException"></exception>
    public static ShortGuid Parse(string shortGuid)
    {
        if (shortGuid == null)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("shortGuid");
        }
        else if (shortGuid.Length != 22)
        {
            throw new FormatException("Input string was not in a correct format.");
        }

        return new ShortGuid(new Guid(Convert.FromBase64String
            (shortGuid.Replace("_", "/").Replace("-", "+") + "==")));
    }

    public static implicit operator String(ShortGuid guid)
    {
        return guid.ToString();
    }

    public static implicit operator Guid(ShortGuid shortGuid)
    {
        return shortGuid.guid;
    }
}