Save Binary Data as String

I think, Base64 is the best for your purpose. Base64 is an algorithm to convert binary data into readable ASCII characters.

As an input, you can use arbitrary binary data with 8 bit, the output string only contains the characters A–Z, a–z, 0–9, + and /.

Here is an example for Lazarus:

uses
  base64;

var
  inputStr, encodedStr, decodedStr: string;
begin
  // arbitrary binary data   
  inputStr := #00#10#09;

  // encode string
  encodedStr := EncodeStringBase64(inputStr);
  // encodedStr is "AAoJ"

  // decode string
  decodedStr := DecodeStringBase64(encodedStr); 
  // decodedStr is again #00#10#09

end;

The example shows how to convert arbitrary binary data (here it is the byte sequence #00 #10 #09 in inputStr) to a readable ASCII string using the function EncodeStringBase64(). The resulting readable string, we are here storing into the variable encodedStr is "AAoJ" for this array of bytes.

You can use DecodeStringBase64() to reverse the string. You can pass an encoded string to this function to get back the original binary data.

When using another programming language, there would also be functions or libraries for Base64.
2014-11-17 at 23:42