VB.NET

Export a Traditional Private Key as Encoded Text

Demonstrates the Chilkat PrivateKey.GetPkcs1ENC method, which exports the key as the traditional/preferred unencrypted DER and encodes the DER bytes as text. The only argument names the binary encoding, such as base64 or hex.

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: This is the encoded-text form of the traditional DER representation — the same bytes the traditional PEM wraps, but returned as a string in the encoding you choose. Use it when a legacy consumer needs the traditional key structure delivered as text rather than as a PEM file. The DER is unencrypted, so the result is sensitive.

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VB.NET

Dim success As Boolean = False

'  Load a private key to export.
Dim privKey As New Chilkat.PrivateKey
success = privKey.LoadPemFile("qa_data/private.pem")
If (success = False) Then
    Debug.WriteLine(privKey.LastErrorText)
    Exit Sub
End If


'  Export as the traditional/preferred unencrypted DER, then encode the DER bytes as text.  The
'  only argument names the binary encoding, such as "base64" or "hex".
Dim encoded As String = privKey.GetPkcs1ENC("base64")
If (privKey.LastMethodSuccess = False) Then
    Debug.WriteLine(privKey.LastErrorText)
    Exit Sub
End If

Debug.WriteLine(encoded)