Public Overloads Shared Function DecodeBytes( _
   ByVal input As String _
) As Byte()

public static byte[] DecodeBytes( 
   string input
)

const string hex = "01-0203-0405\t0607\r\n0809\r0a0b0c\n0d0e0f10 ";
byte[] bin = new byte[] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 };

Assert.AreEqual(0, BinaryComparer.Compare(bin, HexEncoding.DecodeBytes(hex)));
Assert.AreEqual(0, BinaryComparer.Compare(bin, HexEncoding.DecodeBytes(Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(hex))));

Const  hex As String = "01-0203-0405" & vbTab & "0607" & vbCr & vbLf & "0809" & vbCr & "0a0b0c" & vbLf & "0d0e0f10 "
Dim bin As Byte() = New Byte() {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, _
    7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, _
    13, 14, 15, 16}

Assert.AreEqual(0, BinaryComparer.Compare(bin, HexEncoding.DecodeBytes(hex)))
Assert.AreEqual(0, BinaryComparer.Compare(bin, HexEncoding.DecodeBytes(Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(hex))))