How to add two dots for each nth character?

Question

I am developing an Android NFC application. This application can scan an NFC tag (here I have an NXP NTAG 5 boost tag, which is an NFC Forum Type 5 tag).

Since the UID of the NFC-V tag is reversed, my goal is to display the (re)reversed UID of the NFC tag, where each byte is separated by two dots.

Below is the method I use to do this. It reverses the UID well and converts it to hexadecimal well but I can't figure out how to insert a ":" separator every other character.

fun byteArrayToHexInversed(bytes: ByteArray): String {
    //First reverse the UID
    bytes.reverse()
    //Then convert byteArray to Hexa
    val hexChars = CharArray(bytes.size * 2)
    for (j in bytes.indices) {
        val v = bytes[j].toInt() and 0xFF

        hexChars[j * 2] = hexArray[v ushr 4]
        hexChars[j * 2 + 1] = hexArray[v and 0x0F]
    }
    //Finally return the String with the separators
    return hexChars.joinToString(":") { byte ->
        byte.toString().padStart(2, '0')
    }
}

Here is what I have in input:

000839CB580104E0

Here is what I want in output:

E0:04:01:58:CB:39:08:00

cactustictacs · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-03T18:05:29.100

I don't know how wild for efficiency you are with this, but here's an approach!

var input = "000839CB580104E0"
input.chunked(2).reversed().joinToString(":").run(::println)

>> E0:04:01:58:CB:39:08:00

It's basically splitting your input into a list of two-character chunks (so they keep their order, e.g. E0), then reversing that list (so the chunks themselves aren't reversed, but they're listed in reverse order) and you know the rest!

If you want something more efficient with indices, you could do the same thing going over an array in reverse order, grabbing characters in pairs

I can't get your hexChars.joinToString { byte conversion } stuff to work with that input, so I'm probably not setting up hexChars right - I'm just assuming you can start with a String version here, e.g. by calling joinToString(separator="") on the CharArray

If you want to work on the array directly, you can call asIterable() on it:

input.asIterable()
    .chunked(2) { it.joinToString(separator="") }
    .reversed()
    .joinToString(":")
    .run(::println)

but you'll still need to combine each pair of chars into a string at some point, which is what that transform lambda is doing. joinToString takes a transform function to, so you could do it there instead if you like

Thanks for your help! I accept your answer as it works but if you or someone else proposes a solution that uses a `CharArray` directly, I am also listening. — Martin Denion, May 04 '21 at 13:28

How to add two dots for each nth character?

1 Answers1