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Why do we use Base64?

Wikipedia says

Base64 encoding schemes are commonly used when there is a need to encode binary data that needs be stored and transferred over media that are designed to deal with textual data. This is to ensure that the data remains intact without modification during transport.

But is it not that data is always stored/transmitted in binary because the memory that our machines have store binary and it just depends how you interpret it? So, whether you encode the bit pattern 010011010110000101101110 as Man in ASCII or as TWFu in Base64, you are eventually going to store the same bit pattern.

If the ultimate encoding is in terms of zeros and ones and every machine and media can deal with them, how does it matter if the data is represented as ASCII or Base64?

What does it mean "media that are designed to deal with textual data"? They can deal with binary => they can deal with anything.

Thanks everyone, I think I understand now.

When we send over data, we cannot be sure that the data would be interpreted in the same format as we intended it to be. So, we send over data coded in some format (like Base64) that both parties understand. That way even if sender and receiver interpret same things differently, but because they agree on the coded format, the data will not get interpreted wrongly.

From Mark Byers example

If I want to send

Hello
world!

One way is to send it in ASCII like

72 101 108 108 111 10 119 111 114 108 100 33

But byte 10 might not be interpreted correctly as a newline at the other end. So, we use a subset of ASCII to encode it like this

83 71 86 115 98 71 56 115 67 110 100 118 99 109 120 107 73 61 61

which at the cost of more data transferred for the same amount of information ensures that the receiver can decode the data in the intended way, even if the receiver happens to have different interpretations for the rest of the character set.

How do I base64 encode (decode) in C?

I have binary data in an unsigned char variable. I need to convert them to PEM base64 in c. I looked in openssl library but i could not find any function. Does any body have any idea?

Base64: What is the worst possible increase in space usage?

If a server received a base64 string and wanted to check it's length before converting,, say it wanted to always permit the final byte array to be 16KB. How big could a 16KB byte array possibly become when converted to a Base64 string (assuming one byte per character)?

How to convert a Base64 string into a BitMap image to show it in a ImageView?

I have a Base64 String that represents a BitMap image.

I need to transform that String into a BitMap image again to use it on a ImageView in my Android app

How to do it?

This is the code that I use to transform the image into the base64 String:

//proceso de transformar la imagen BitMap en un String:
//android:src="c:\logo.png"
Resources r = this.getResources();
Bitmap bm = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(r, R.drawable.logo);
ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();  
bm.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.PNG, 100, baos); //bm is the bitmap object   
byte[] b = baos.toByteArray();
//String encodedImage = Base64.encode(b, Base64.DEFAULT);
encodedImage = Base64.encodeBytes(b);

Get image data in JavaScript?

I have a regular HTML page with some images (just regular <img /> HTML tags). I'd like to get their content, base64 encoded preferably, without the need to redownload the image (ie. it's already loaded by the browser, so now I want the content).

I'd love to achieve that with Greasemonkey and Firefox.

How do I do base64 encoding on iphone-sdk?

I'd like to do base64 encoding and decoding, but I could not find any support from the iPhone SDK. How can I do base64 encoding and decoding with or without a library?

Convert UIImage to Base64 string in Objective-C and Swift

Does anyone know how to convert Image to Base64 string in iOS.

I have the below code, the original image before encoding is good, but I only get blank image after I encode and decode it. Thanks,

NSData *imageData = UIImagePNGRepresentation(viewImage);

NSString *b64EncStr = [self encode: imageData];

NSString *base64String = [self encodeBase64:imageData];

How to save a PNG image server-side, from a base64 data string

I'm using Nihilogic's "Canvas2Image" JavaScript tool to convert canvas drawings to PNG images. What I need now is to turn those base64 strings that this tool generates, into actual PNG files on the server, using PHP.

In short, what I'm currently doing is to generate a file on the client side using Canvas2Image, then retrieve the base64-encoded data and send it to the server using AJAX:

// Generate the image file
var image = Canvas2Image.saveAsPNG(canvas, true);   

image.id = "canvasimage";
canvas.parentNode.replaceChild(image, canvas);

var url = 'hidden.php',
data = $('#canvasimage').attr('src');

$.ajax({ 
    type: "POST", 
    url: url,
    dataType: 'text',
    data: {
        base64data : data
    }
});

At this point, "hidden.php" receives a data block that looks like data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAABE...

From this point on, I'm pretty much stumped. From what I've read, I believe that I'm supposed to use PHP's imagecreatefromstring function, but I'm not sure how to actually create an actual PNG image from the base64-encoded string and store it on my server. Please aid!

Strange \n in base64 encoded string in Ruby

The inbuilt Base64 library in Ruby is adding some '\n's. I'm unable to find out the reason. For this special example:

irb(main):001:0> require 'rubygems'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> require 'base64'
=> true
irb(main):003:0> str =  "1110--ad6ca0b06e1fbeb7e6518a0418a73a6e04a67054"
=> "1110--ad6ca0b06e1fbeb7e6518a0418a73a6e04a67054"
irb(main):004:0> Base64.encode64(str)
=> "MTExMC0tYWQ2Y2EwYjA2ZTFmYmViN2U2NTE4YTA0MThhNzNhNmUwNGE2NzA1\nNA==\n"

The \n's are at the last and 6th position from end. The decoder (Base64.decode64) returns back the old string perfectly. Strange thing is, these \n's don't add any value to the encoded string. When I remove the newlines from the output string, the decoder decodes it again perfectly.

irb(main):005:0> Base64.decode64(Base64.encode64(str).gsub("\n", '')) == str
=> true

More of this, I used an another JS library to produce the base64 encoded output of the same input string, the output comes without the \n's.

Is this a bug or anything else? Has anybody faced this issue before?

FYI,

$ ruby -v
ruby 1.8.7 (2008-08-11 patchlevel 72) [i486-linux]

Code for decoding/encoding a modified base64 URL

I want to base64 encode data to put it in a URL and then decode it within my HttpHandler.

I have found that Base64 Encoding allows for a '/' character which will mess up my UriTemplate matching. Then I found that there is a concept of a "modified Base64 for URL" from wikipedia:

A modified Base64 for URL variant exists, where no padding '=' will be used, and the '+' and '/' characters of standard Base64 are respectively replaced by '-' and '_', so that using URL encoders/decoders is no longer necessary and has no impact on the length of the encoded value, leaving the same encoded form intact for use in relational databases, web forms, and object identifiers in general.

Using .NET I want to modify my current code from doing basic base64 encoding and decoding to using the "modified base64 for URL" method. Has anyone done this?

To decode, I know it starts out with something like:

string base64EncodedText = base64UrlEncodedText.Replace('-', '+').Replace('_', '/');

// Append '=' char(s) if necessary - how best to do this?

// My normal base64 decoding now uses encodedText

But, I need to potentially add one or two '=' chars to the end which looks a little more complex.

My encoding logic should be a little simpler:

// Perform normal base64 encoding
byte[] encodedBytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(unencodedText);
string base64EncodedText = Convert.ToBase64String(encodedBytes);

// Apply URL variant
string base64UrlEncodedText = base64EncodedText.Replace("=", String.Empty).Replace('+', '-').Replace('/', '_');

I have seen the Guid to Base64 for URL StackOverflow entry, but that has a known length and therefore they can hardcode the number of equal signs needed at the end.

How do I decode a base64 encoded string?

I am trying to "decode" this following Base64 string:

OBFZDTcPCxlCKhdXCQ0kMQhKPh9uIgYIAQxALBtZAwUeOzcdcUEeW0dMO1kbPElWCV1ISFFKZ0kdWFlLAURPZhEFQVseXVtPOUUICVhMAzcfZ14AVEdIVVgfAUIBWVpOUlAeaUVMXFlKIy9rGUN0VF08Oz1POxFfTCcVFw1LMQNbBQYWAQ==

This is what I know about the string itself:

1. The original string is first passed through the following code:

   private static string m000493(string p0, string p1)
   {
       StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(p0);
       StringBuilder builder2 = new StringBuilder(p1);
       StringBuilder builder3 = new StringBuilder(p0.Length);
       int num = 0;
   Label_0084:
       while (num < builder.Length)
       {
           int num2 = 0;
           while (num2 < p1.Length)
           {
               if ((num == builder.Length) || (num2 == builder2.Length))
               {
                   MessageBox.Show("EH?");
                   goto Label_0084;
               }
               char ch = builder[num];
               char ch2 = builder2[num2];
               ch = (char)(ch ^ ch2);
               builder3.Append(ch);
               num2++;
               num++;
           }
       }
       return m0001cd(builder3.ToString());
   }
   

   The p1 part in the code is supposed to be the string "_p0lizei.".

2. It is then converted to a Base64 string by the following code:

   private static string m0001cd(string p0)
   {
       string str2;
       try
       {
           byte[] buffer = new byte[p0.Length];
           str2 = Convert.ToBase64String(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(p0));
       }
       catch (Exception exception)
       {
           throw new Exception("Error in base64Encode" + exception.Message);
       }
       return str2;
   }
   

The question is, how do I decode the Base64 string so that I can find out what the original string is?

Creating a Blob from a base64 string in JavaScript

I have base64-encoded binary data in a string.

var contentType = 'image/png';
var b64Data = 'iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAUAAAAFCAYAAACNbyblAAAAHElEQVQI12P4//8/w38GIAXDIBKE0DHxgljNBAAO9TXL0Y4OHwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==';

I would like to create a blob: URL containing this data and display it to the user.

var blob = new Blob(????, {type: contentType});
var blobUrl = URL.createObjectURL(blob);

window.location = blobUrl;

I haven't been been able to figure out how to create the Blob.

In some cases I am able to avoid this by using a data: URL instead.

var dataUrl = 'data:' + contentType + ',' + b64Data;

window.location = dataUrl;

However in most cases the data: URLs are prohibitively large.

How can I decode a base64 string to a Blob object in JavaScript?

Should I embed images as data/base64 in CSS or HTML

To reduce the number requests on the server I have embedded some images (PNG & SVG) as BASE64 directly into the css. (Its automated in the build process)

like this:

background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG etc...);

Is this a good practice? Are there some reasons to avoid this? Are there some major browser that don't have data url support?

Bonus question: Does it make sense to do this for the CSS & JS also?

Base64 Encoding in Java

I use Eclipse. I have the following line of code:

wr.write(new sun.misc.BASE64Encoder().encode(buf));

Eclipse mark this line as error. I import the required libraries;

import sun.misc.BASE64Encoder;
import sun.misc.BASE64Decoder;

But again, both of them shown as errors. I found a similar post here: import sun.misc.BASE64Encoder got error in Eclipse

I used the Apache Commons as the solution suggests by typing:

import org.apache.commons.*;

and importing the JAR files downloaded from: http://commons.apache.org/codec/

But the problem still exist. Eclipse showing the previously mentioned lines as errors. Please, advise.

Base64 encoding and decoding in client-side Javascript

Are there any methods in JavaScript that could be used to encode and decode a string using base64 encoding?