title: SHA256 giving 44 length output instead 64 length
body: <p>I am using the following code to perform SHA256.</p>
  
  <pre><code>public static string GenerateSaltedHash(string plainTextString, string saltString)        
          {            
              byte[] salt = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(saltString);
              byte[] plainText = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(plainTextString);
              HashAlgorithm algorithm = new SHA256Managed();
  
              byte[] plainTextWithSaltBytes =
                new byte[plainText.Length + salt.Length];
  
              for (int i = 0; i &lt; plainText.Length; i++)
              {
                  plainTextWithSaltBytes[i] = plainText[i];
              }
              for (int i = 0; i &lt; salt.Length; i++)
              {
                  plainTextWithSaltBytes[plainText.Length + i] = salt[i];
              }
              byte[] bytes = algorithm.ComputeHash(plainTextWithSaltBytes);
              return Convert.ToBase64String(algorithm.ComputeHash(plainTextWithSaltBytes));                              
          }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>As I am using SHA256, I expect the length of the result to be 64. But I am getting 44.</p>
  
  <p>What is the issue? Will the shorter length output impact security?</p>