Converting vbFromUnicode from vba to vb.net

[zuccj]

I have a program that was created in vba, and I am working on attempting to convert it to work in vb.net. There are two functions that use vbUniCode and vbFromUnicode in a strConv.

The two functions are:

    Private Function CommRead(Handle As Integer, DataBuffer As String, Size As Integer) As Integer
        Dim bytesRead As Integer
        Dim status As Integer
        Dim buffer() As Byte

        ReDim buffer(Size)

        'Read from port
        status = Relay_Functions.ReadFile(Handle, buffer(0), Size, bytesRead, 0)

        If (status = 0) Then
            CommRead = 0
        Else
            'Convert the array back in to string
            DataBuffer = Left(StrConv(buffer, vbUnicode), Size)
            CommRead = bytesRead
        End If

    End Function

    Private Function CommWrite(Handle As Integer, Data As String) As Integer
        Dim bytesWritten As Integer
        Dim status As Integer
        Dim buffer() As Byte

        ReDim buffer(Len(Data))
        buffer = StrConv(Data, vbFromUnicode)

        'Write data to port
        status = Relay_Functions.WriteFile(Handle, buffer(0), Len(Data), bytesWritten, 0)

        If (status = 0) Then
            CommWrite = 0
        Else
            CommWrite = bytesWritten
        End If

    End Function

Been trying to find an answer, but haven't been able to find anything sold that works in what the correct conversion is.

[jmcilhinney]

In VB.NET, you use the Encoding class and those derived from it to convert between text and binary data. If you have a Byte array and you want to convert it to text based on a specific encoding then you call GetString on the appropriate Encoding object, e.g. Encoding.Unicode.GetString. The GetBytes method does the inverse. You should do a bit of reading and/or experimentation with the available options as it's not necessarily UnicodeEncoding that you need. It might be UTF8Encoding or something else. I've rarely done this sort of thing so I'm not sure.