Convert String to Binary equivalent

Hi I need to convert a String to its equivalent binary representation.
for example "hello" must be converted to a binary equivalent of length 40 bits.
i.e each character in a string must generate a binary value of 8 digits.

Please help me

it is very urgent...

Thank you in advance...

You could use getBytes method from String class . for example :
String s = "hello" ;
byte[] b = s.getBytes();
and then convert bytes to binary representation with Integer.toBinaryString(b[0]);