Base64 in Python
Base64 is a common encoding technique used to convert binary data into ASCII text format. In Python, base64 module provides efficient and easy-to-use functions to encode and decode data using this method. Base64 encoding is used in various applications, including email attachments, image data transfer, and data storage.
Encoding
We first import the base64 module. Then, we define a string variable message that we want to encode to base64. We encode the string to bytes using the encode() method with the encoding ascii. Next, we use the b64encode() function from the base64 module to encode the byte string to base64.
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import base64
message = "Encode me to base64!"
message_bytes = message.encode('ascii')
base64_bytes = base64.b64encode(message_bytes)
print(base64_bytes) # b'RW5jb2RlIG1lIHRvIGJhc2U2NCE='Decoding
To decode a base64-encoded string in Python, you can still use the built-in base64 module. The base64.b64decode() method takes the encoded string as input and returns the decoded bytes. You can then convert the bytes to a string using the .decode() method.
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import base64
base64_string = "RW5jb2RlIG1lIHRvIGJhc2U2NCE="
base64_bytes = base64_string.encode('utf-8')
message = base64.b64decode(base64_bytes)
print(message) # b'Encode me to base64!'Working With String Bytes
In Python, when working with Base64 encoding and decoding, it‘s important to work with byte strings rather than regular strings. This is because Base64 is a binary-to-text encoding scheme, meaning it works with binary data, not text. In Python 3, strings are Unicode by default, which means they can contain any character from any language. However, this can cause issues when encoding and decoding binary data like images or files, as regular strings can‘t properly represent binary data. By working with byte strings, which are represented by the "bytes" type in Python, you can ensure that the binary data is properly encoded and decoded.