xml issue incorporating byte array

hello i use a form of message parsing in which i write fields into a buffered stream, and then extract a byte array repesantaition of that stream

MyMessage _message = new MyMessage("me","you",MessageType.peer_me开发者_开发问答ssage,4252422) ;
// in the constructor String sender,String receiver,MessageType(enumaraition) m_type,Int32 id 

byte [] buffer = myEncoder.encode(message) ;

now when i pass this to myDecoder it decodes it in the same metter and it works great ! how i do that is not the issue

my issue is that in some cases of misscommunicaition i need to store the byte[] array (buffer) for farther use , and i'm trying to do that in an xmlDocumant under a tag HERE IN THE INNER TEXT IS WHERE I WOULD LIKE TO SAVE THAT ARRAY OF BYTES

ive tryed --> utf8Encoding.Ascii.getString(buffer) which save some kind of repsantaition but it changes values of field wich are not strings... when i take it out by using

utf8Encoding.Ascii.getBytes(packet_node.innerText) ; 

1)THE QUESTION IS HOW WOULD U GO ABOUT SAVING THAT BYTE ARRAY TO A XMLNODE 2)i've also tried just writing the fields one by one in each tag

 <Packet>
      <sender>me</sender>
      <receiver>him</receiver>
      <MessageType> ..?? how would  i represent a byte as a string ? </MessageType> 
      <Id> 4252353523 </Id> here i have no problem but i still would have to always prase the value back and forth in other uses from int to string ..

</Packet> 

3) so my conclusion is to serialize the byte array to an xmldocument .. just that i don't want it to be a document but just one node in an existing document

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Encode it as a base-64 string. Just remember to decode it when you read it back.

byte[] bytes = ...;
string encoded = Convert.ToBase64String(bytes);
byte[] decoded = Convert.FromBase64String(encoded);