Setting content type of the OpenPGP data with C# and VB.NET

The OpenPGP archive format contains internal information for the encrypted data like file name, modification date, and content type.

The OpenPGP standard currently supports three types of content type : binary, text and UTF-8 (seldom used in practice).

The default is binary. In this chapter we will demonstrate how to change this behavior.

Specifying explicitly the content type

In most cases you don’t have to bother to change the default content type before performing encryption.

The only case when you have to set it explicitly is when your recipient expects textual data and is using an Operating System with different line ending characters. This way when they decrypt it, their OpenPGP software will correct the line endings automatically for their operating system.

The example below demonstrates how to explicitly set the content type in C# and VB.NET.

C# example

using System;
using DidiSoft.Pgp;
 
public class SetContentTypeDemo
{
  public void Demo() 
  {
     // create an instance of the library
     PGPLib pgp = new PGPLib();
     // change explicitly the content type       
     pgp.ContentType = ContentDataType.Text;
 
     // now we can call pgp.Encrypt ...
  }
}

VB.NET example

Imports System.IO
Imports DidiSoft.Pgp
 
Public Class SetContentTypeDemo
  Public Sub Demo()
    ' create an instance of the library
    Dim pgp As New PGPLib()
    ' change explicitly the content type           
    pgp.ContentType = ContentDataType.Text
 
    ' now we can call pgp.Encrypt ...
  End Sub
End Class

Summary

In this chapter we have illustrated how to explicitly set the content type before performing OpenPGP encryption.

Properties used: