Vb.Net 256 Hash to PHP 256 Hash

Question

I have VB.Net method that does this:

' Step 1: UTF8 Encodes
Dim uEncode As New UnicodeEncoding()

' Step 2: Creates Byte Array from UTF8 encoded string
Dim bytClearString() As Byte = uEncode.GetBytes(ClearString)

' Step 3: Creates the hash from the byte array
Dim sha As New System.Security.Cryptography.SHA256Managed()
Dim hash() As Byte = sha.ComputeHash(bytClearString)

' Base64 Encodes the hash
Return Convert.ToBase64String(hash)

In PHP I'm doing this:

// Step 1 utf8 encode
$tohash = utf8_encode('testinfostring');

// Step 2 cast string to byte array
Not sure about this step...

// Step 3
$hash = hash('sha256', $tohash, true);

// Step 4 convert hashed array to base64 encoded string
echo base64_encode($hash);

The output from my VB.Net method differs from the PHP and I think it's that VB encryption is happening on the byte array while PHP is on the string itself.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

The solution was to change the PHP from:

$tohash = utf8_encode('testinfostring');

to:

$tohash = mb_convert_encoding('testinfostring', 'UTF-16LE', 'UTF-8');