Visual Basic 6.0

Export a Public Key as PEM

Demonstrates the Chilkat PublicKey.GetPem method, which returns the public key in PEM format. The only argument selects the underlying DER representation: true prefers the traditional PKCS #1 form (RSA), false uses the SubjectPublicKeyInfo form.

Note: The file paths are relative to the application's current working directory. Absolute paths may also be used. Supply the paths appropriate to your own environment.

Background: PEM is the most portable way to share a public key — the Base64 text block most tooling reads. The boolean picks the encoding: false produces the modern, algorithm-independent PUBLIC KEY (SubjectPublicKeyInfo), which is the usual choice; true produces the older RSA-specific RSA PUBLIC KEY for tools that require it. A public key is not sensitive, so the PEM can be distributed openly.

Chilkat Visual Basic 6.0 Downloads

Download Chilkat for Visual Basic 6.0

Visual Basic 6.0

Dim success As Long
success = 0

'  Load a public key to export.  LoadFromFile inspects the content, so it accepts DER, PEM, XML,
'  JWK, and other supported representations.
Dim pubKey As New PublicKey
success = pubKey.LoadFromFile("qa_data/public.pem")
If (success = 0) Then
    Debug.Print pubKey.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

'  Export the public key in PEM format.  The argument selects the underlying DER representation:
'  1 prefers the traditional PKCS #1 form (RSA), 0 uses the SubjectPublicKeyInfo form.
Dim preferPkcs1 As Long
preferPkcs1 = 0
Dim pem As String
pem = pubKey.GetPem(preferPkcs1)
If (pubKey.LastMethodSuccess = 0) Then
    Debug.Print pubKey.LastErrorText
    Exit Sub
End If

Debug.Print pem