base64

base64 is a robust base64 encoder/decoder that is fully compatible with atob() and btoa(), written in JavaScript. The base64-encoding and -decoding algorithms it uses are fully RFC 4648 compliant.

Installation

Via npm:

npm install base-64

In a browser:

<script src="base64.js"></script>

In Narwhal, Node.js, and RingoJS:

var base64 = require('base-64');

In Rhino:

load('base64.js');

Using an AMD loader like RequireJS:

require(
  {
    'paths': {
      'base64': 'path/to/base64'
    }
  },
  ['base64'],
  function(base64) {
    console.log(base64);
  }
);

API

base64.version

A string representing the semantic version number.

base64.encode(input)

This function takes a byte string (the input parameter) and encodes it according to base64. The input data must be in the form of a string containing only characters in the range from U+0000 to U+00FF, each representing a binary byte with values 0x00 to 0xFF. The base64.encode() function is designed to be fully compatible with btoa() as described in the HTML Standard.

var encodedData = base64.encode(input);

To base64-encode any Unicode string, encode it as UTF-8 first:

var base64 = require('base-64');
var utf8 = require('utf8');
 
var text = 'foo © bar 𝌆 baz';
var bytes = utf8.encode(text);
var encoded = base64.encode(bytes);
console.log(encoded);
// → 'Zm9vIMKpIGJhciDwnYyGIGJheg=='

base64.decode(input)

This function takes a base64-encoded string (the input parameter) and decodes it. The return value is in the form of a string containing only characters in the range from U+0000 to U+00FF, each representing a binary byte with values 0x00 to 0xFF. The base64.decode() function is designed to be fully compatible with atob() as described in the HTML Standard.

var decodedData = base64.decode(encodedData);

To base64-decode UTF-8-encoded data back into a Unicode string, UTF-8-decode it after base64-decoding it:

var encoded = 'Zm9vIMKpIGJhciDwnYyGIGJheg==';
var bytes = base64.decode(encoded);
var text = utf8.decode(bytes);
console.log(text);
// → 'foo © bar 𝌆 baz'

Support

base64 is designed to work in at least Node.js v0.10.0, Narwhal 0.3.2, RingoJS 0.8-0.9, PhantomJS 1.9.0, Rhino 1.7RC4, as well as old and modern versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Internet Explorer.

Unit tests & code coverage

After cloning this repository, run npm install to install the dependencies needed for development and testing. You may want to install Istanbul globally using npm install istanbul -g.

Once that’s done, you can run the unit tests in Node using npm test or node tests/tests.js. To run the tests in Rhino, Ringo, Narwhal, and web browsers as well, use grunt test.

To generate the code coverage report, use grunt cover.

Author

Mathias Bynens

License

base64 is available under the MIT license.