title: Can anyone identify this encoding?
body: <p>Im working on a program to interface with some hardware that is sending data that has been encoded  and wrapped to send within a CDATA block in an XML document.</p>
  
  <p>the software in the device as far as I know is written in Python and i'm writing the interface in Delphi.</p>
  
  <p>the data the device sends is this</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>\x00E\x18\x10\x14}*UF!A\x81\xac\x08&amp;\x02\x01\n\x15\x1a\xc2PP\x92\x17\xc2\xc1\xa0\x0e\x1a\xc2\xd0K\x94\'\x830\x11\x8b
    \x84a_\xa0+\x04\x81\x17\x89\x15D\x91B\x05.\x84\xf1\x1b\x89%E\x00\x04\x9c\x0e\xc5\xc1=\x87\x0bE\xf18\x07\x1f\xc8a\xa5\x95\x08H\x80?\x84\x18\tPK\x8a$\t\xf1\xb2\x8e(J\xb0\x08\x91\x1eJ\xf0W\x0c-\x0b\xf0\x0e\x88\x07\x0c\x00\x9b\n
    \x910Z\x06!\x92\xf0W\x073S
    \x08\x87\xff\xff\xff\xf0\x0e\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xf3\x10\x0e\xba\xff\xff\xff\xf4C
    \xed\xbb\xb9_\xffDD1\r\xcb\xbaw\xf5TD2\xed\xbb\xba\x88EUDB\x0c\xba\xaa\x99UUDB\x0c\xba\xaa\xa9UUD2\r\xbb\xaa\xaaUTD2\r\xcb\xbb\xaaUTC!\r\xcb\xbb\xbbUD3!\x0e\xdc\xbb\xbbDD3!\x0e\xdc\xcc\xbbDC2!\x0e\xdc\xcc\xcc33"\x11\x0e\xdd\xcc\xccC3"\x11\x0e\xed\xdc\xcc\xf33!\x10\x0e\xee\xdd\xcc\xf32!\x10\x0e\xee\xdd\xdc\xff2!\x10\x00\xee\xee\xdd\xff\xf2!\x11\x00\x0e\xee\xdd\xff\xf2!\x11\x10\x0e\xee\xef\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I need to be able to send similar data back to the device but the format i have it in is this </p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>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p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I know that \x is usually used to represent ascii chars using their hex values in 2 digit pairs but looking at the data this not the case. i'm struggling to identify the encoding used and the manufacturer is not providing much help.</p>
  
  <p>what I want to know is how do I convert the hex I have to the format they are using in Delphi xe4?</p>
  
  <p><strong>BTW the two block do not contain the same data but it is the same type of data ie the format is the same just different encoding</strong></p>
  
  <p>example of the data being sent</p>
  
  <pre><code>POST ******** HTTP/1.1 Host: 172.16.1.136:8080 Accept-Encoding: identity Content-Length: 1552 Content-Type: text/xml Authorization: 1344354:PASS User-Agent: *********
  
  &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?&gt; &lt;Biometrics&gt;   &lt;Templates&gt;
       &lt;Template badge="1075" readerType="6" index="6" ts="2014-11-06T17:28:40.000+01:00" chk="3a6a4924ec04e668186b15e244e6fe73"&gt;   &lt;![CDATA[     ['1075_6',
  1415294920.3754971, [0, 0], [['3\x04\x00\x00\x00P\x00\x00E\x18\x10\x14}*UF!A\x81\xac\x08&amp;\x02\x01\n\x15\x1a\xc2PP\x92\x17\xc2\xc1\xa0\x0e\x1a\xc2\xd0K\x94\'\x830\x11\x8b \x84a_\xa0+\x04\x81\x17\x89\x15D\x91B\x05.\x84\xf1\x1b\x89%E\x00\x04\x9c\x0e\xc5\xc1=\x87\x0bE\xf18\x07\x1f\xc8a\xa5\x95\x08H\x80?\x84\x18\tPK\x8a$\t\xf1\xb2\x8e(J\xb0\x08\x91\x1eJ\xf0W\x0c-\x0b\xf0\x0e\x88\x07\x0c\x00\x9b\n \x910Z\x06!\x92\xf0W\x073S \x08\x87\xff\xff\xff\xf0\x0e\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xf3\x10\x0e\xba\xff\xff\xff\xf4C \xed\xbb\xb9_\xffDD1\r\xcb\xbaw\xf5TD2\xed\xbb\xba\x88EUDB\x0c\xba\xaa\x99UUDB\x0c\xba\xaa\xa9UUD2\r\xbb\xaa\xaaUTD2\r\xcb\xbb\xaaUTC!\r\xcb\xbb\xbbUD3!\x0e\xdc\xbb\xbbDD3!\x0e\xdc\xcc\xbbDC2!\x0e\xdc\xcc\xcc33"\x11\x0e\xdd\xcc\xccC3"\x11\x0e\xed\xdc\xcc\xf33!\x10\x0e\xee\xdd\xcc\xf32!\x10\x0e\xee\xdd\xdc\xff2!\x10\x00\xee\xee\xdd\xff\xf2!\x11\x00\x0e\xee\xdd\xff\xf2!\x11\x10\x0e\xee\xef\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00']]] ]]&gt; &lt;/Template&gt;
  
    &lt;/Templates&gt; &lt;/Biometrics&gt; HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1 Content-Type: text/xml;charset=ISO-8859-1 Transfer-Encoding: chunked Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 17:28:41 GMT
  
  52 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;&lt;OperationStatus uid=""&gt;OK&lt;/OperationStatus&gt; 0
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>These are biometric templates used by the Suprema Reader if that helps.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Solution</strong></p>
  
  <p>I have successfully deciphered what is going on with this now. to turn my original hex string into the required format I'm using this code, hope this helps someone else in the future. Please feel free to comment and make suggestions to improve the code.</p>
  
  <pre><code>class function TConvert.HexToPythonEscAscii(const aHexString: string): string;
  var
    i: Integer;
    ByteArray: array of Byte;
  begin
    Result := '';
  
    SetLength(ByteArray, (length(aHexString) div 2) );
  
    TConvert.HexToBytes(aHexString, ByteArray, length(ByteArray));
  
    for i := Low(ByteArray) to High(ByteArray) do
    begin
      if ByteArray[i] in [$20..$7E] then
      begin
  
        case ByteArray[i] of
          $5c : Result := Result +'\\';
          $27 : Result := Result +'\''';
        else
          Result := Result + char(ByteArray[i])
        end;
  
      end
      else
      begin
  
        case ansichar(ByteArray[i]) of
          TAB : Result :=  Result + '\t';
          LF  : Result :=  Result + '\n';
          CR  : Result :=  Result + '\r';
        else
          Result :=  Result + '\x' + LowerCase(IntToHex(ByteArray[i], 2));
        end;
  
      end;
    end;
  end;
  </code></pre>