.\" -*- mode: troff; coding: utf-8 -*- .\" Automatically generated by Pod::Man 5.01 (Pod::Simple 3.43) .\" .\" Standard preamble: .\" ======================================================================== .de Sp \" Vertical space (when we can't use .PP) .if t .sp .5v .if n .sp .. .de Vb \" Begin verbatim text .ft CW .nf .ne \\$1 .. .de Ve \" End verbatim text .ft R .fi .. .\" \*(C` and \*(C' are quotes in nroff, nothing in troff, for use with C<>. .ie n \{\ . ds C` "" . ds C' "" 'br\} .el\{\ . ds C` . ds C' 'br\} .\" .\" Escape single quotes in literal strings from groff's Unicode transform. .ie \n(.g .ds Aq \(aq .el .ds Aq ' .\" .\" If the F register is >0, we'll generate index entries on stderr for .\" titles (.TH), headers (.SH), subsections (.SS), items (.Ip), and index .\" entries marked with X<> in POD. Of course, you'll have to process the .\" output yourself in some meaningful fashion. .\" .\" Avoid warning from groff about undefined register 'F'. .de IX .. .nr rF 0 .if \n(.g .if rF .nr rF 1 .if (\n(rF:(\n(.g==0)) \{\ . if \nF \{\ . de IX . tm Index:\\$1\t\\n%\t"\\$2" .. . if !\nF==2 \{\ . nr % 0 . nr F 2 . \} . \} .\} .rr rF .\" ======================================================================== .\" .IX Title "MIME::Base64 3pm" .TH MIME::Base64 3pm 2023-11-28 "perl v5.38.2" "Perl Programmers Reference Guide" .\" For nroff, turn off justification. Always turn off hyphenation; it makes .\" way too many mistakes in technical documents. .if n .ad l .nh .SH NAME MIME::Base64 \- Encoding and decoding of base64 strings .SH SYNOPSIS .IX Header "SYNOPSIS" .Vb 1 \& use MIME::Base64; \& \& $encoded = encode_base64(\*(AqAladdin:open sesame\*(Aq); \& $decoded = decode_base64($encoded); .Ve .SH DESCRIPTION .IX Header "DESCRIPTION" This module provides functions to encode and decode strings into and from the base64 encoding specified in RFC 2045 \- \fIMIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)\fR. The base64 encoding is designed to represent arbitrary sequences of octets in a form that need not be humanly readable. A 65\-character subset ([A\-Za\-z0\-9+/=]) of US-ASCII is used, enabling 6 bits to be represented per printable character. .PP The following primary functions are provided: .ie n .IP "encode_base64( $bytes )" 4 .el .IP "encode_base64( \f(CW$bytes\fR )" 4 .IX Item "encode_base64( $bytes )" .PD 0 .ie n .IP "encode_base64( $bytes, $eol );" 4 .el .IP "encode_base64( \f(CW$bytes\fR, \f(CW$eol\fR );" 4 .IX Item "encode_base64( $bytes, $eol );" .PD Encode data by calling the \fBencode_base64()\fR function. The first argument is the byte string to encode. The second argument is the line-ending sequence to use. It is optional and defaults to "\en". The returned encoded string is broken into lines of no more than 76 characters each and it will end with \f(CW$eol\fR unless it is empty. Pass an empty string as second argument if you do not want the encoded string to be broken into lines. .Sp The function will croak with "Wide character in subroutine entry" if \f(CW$bytes\fR contains characters with code above 255. The base64 encoding is only defined for single-byte characters. Use the Encode module to select the byte encoding you want. .ie n .IP "decode_base64( $str )" 4 .el .IP "decode_base64( \f(CW$str\fR )" 4 .IX Item "decode_base64( $str )" Decode a base64 string by calling the \fBdecode_base64()\fR function. This function takes a single argument which is the string to decode and returns the decoded data. .Sp Any character not part of the 65\-character base64 subset is silently ignored. Characters occurring after a '=' padding character are never decoded. .PP If you prefer not to import these routines into your namespace, you can call them as: .PP .Vb 3 \& use MIME::Base64 (); \& $encoded = MIME::Base64::encode($decoded); \& $decoded = MIME::Base64::decode($encoded); .Ve .PP Additional functions not exported by default: .ie n .IP "encode_base64url( $bytes )" 4 .el .IP "encode_base64url( \f(CW$bytes\fR )" 4 .IX Item "encode_base64url( $bytes )" .PD 0 .ie n .IP "decode_base64url( $str )" 4 .el .IP "decode_base64url( \f(CW$str\fR )" 4 .IX Item "decode_base64url( $str )" .PD Encode and decode according to the base64 scheme for "URL applications" [1]. This is a variant of the base64 encoding which does not use padding, does not break the string into multiple lines and use the characters "\-" and "_" instead of "+" and "/" to avoid using reserved URL characters. .ie n .IP "encoded_base64_length( $bytes )" 4 .el .IP "encoded_base64_length( \f(CW$bytes\fR )" 4 .IX Item "encoded_base64_length( $bytes )" .PD 0 .ie n .IP "encoded_base64_length( $bytes, $eol )" 4 .el .IP "encoded_base64_length( \f(CW$bytes\fR, \f(CW$eol\fR )" 4 .IX Item "encoded_base64_length( $bytes, $eol )" .PD Returns the length that the encoded string would have without actually encoding it. This will return the same value as \f(CW\*(C`length(encode_base64($bytes))\*(C'\fR, but should be more efficient. .ie n .IP "decoded_base64_length( $str )" 4 .el .IP "decoded_base64_length( \f(CW$str\fR )" 4 .IX Item "decoded_base64_length( $str )" Returns the length that the decoded string would have without actually decoding it. This will return the same value as \f(CW\*(C`length(decode_base64($str))\*(C'\fR, but should be more efficient. .SH EXAMPLES .IX Header "EXAMPLES" If you want to encode a large file, you should encode it in chunks that are a multiple of 57 bytes. This ensures that the base64 lines line up and that you do not end up with padding in the middle. 57 bytes of data fills one complete base64 line (76 == 57*4/3): .PP .Vb 1 \& use MIME::Base64 qw(encode_base64); \& \& open(FILE, "/var/log/wtmp") or die "$!"; \& while (read(FILE, $buf, 60*57)) { \& print encode_base64($buf); \& } .Ve .PP or if you know you have enough memory .PP .Vb 3 \& use MIME::Base64 qw(encode_base64); \& local($/) = undef; # slurp \& print encode_base64(); .Ve .PP The same approach as a command line: .PP .Vb 1 \& perl \-MMIME::Base64 \-0777 \-ne \*(Aqprint encode_base64($_)\*(Aq and Joerg Reichelt and code posted to comp.lang.perl <3pd2lp$6gf@wsinti07.win.tue.nl> by Hans Mulder .PP The XS implementation uses code from metamail. Copyright 1991 Bell Communications Research, Inc. (Bellcore) .SH "SEE ALSO" .IX Header "SEE ALSO" MIME::QuotedPrint .PP [1]