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Hex Encoding

Hexadecimal strings are used throughout Cardano for hashes, policy IDs, transaction IDs, and raw byte data. The Bytes module provides conversion between hex strings and byte arrays.

Hex to Bytes​

import { Bytes } from "@evolution-sdk/evolution"

const txHash = Bytes.fromHex(
  "a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6e7f8a9b0c1d2e3f4a5b6c7d8e9f0a1b2"
)

const policyId = Bytes.fromHex(
  "abc123def456abc123def456abc123def456abc123def456abc123de"
)

Bytes to Hex​

import { Bytes } from "@evolution-sdk/evolution"

const bytes = new Uint8Array([0xab, 0xcd, 0xef])
const hex = Bytes.toHex(bytes)
// "abcdef"

Text to Bytes​

For human-readable strings (asset names, metadata values), use Text.toBytes:

import { Text } from "@evolution-sdk/evolution"

const tokenName = Text.toBytes("MyToken")

When to use which:

  • Bytes.fromHex — For hashes, policy IDs, credential hashes (data already in hex)
  • Text.toBytes — For asset names, metadata values (human-readable strings)

Next Steps​