Learn X By Example
Learn X By Example

    Go by Example: Base64 Encoding

    Go by Example : Base64 Encoding

    Go provides built-in support for base64 encoding/decoding .

    package main

    This syntax imports the encoding/base64 package with the b64 name instead of the default base64 . It’ll save us some space below.

    import (
    b64 "encoding/base64"
    "fmt"
)
    func main() {

    Here’s the string we’ll encode/decode.

        data := "abc123!?$*&()'-=@~"

    Go supports both standard and URL-compatible base64. Here’s how to encode using the standard encoder. The encoder requires a []byte so we convert our string to that type.

        sEnc := b64.StdEncoding.EncodeToString([]byte(data))
    fmt.Println(sEnc)

    Decoding may return an error, which you can check if you don’t already know the input to be well-formed.

        sDec, _ := b64.StdEncoding.DecodeString(sEnc)
    fmt.Println(string(sDec))
    fmt.Println()

    This encodes/decodes using a URL-compatible base64 format.

        uEnc := b64.URLEncoding.EncodeToString([]byte(data))
    fmt.Println(uEnc)
    uDec, _ := b64.URLEncoding.DecodeString(uEnc)
    fmt.Println(string(uDec))
}

    The string encodes to slightly different values with the standard and URL base64 encoders (trailing + vs - ) but they both decode to the original string as desired.

    $ go run base64-encoding.go
YWJjMTIzIT8kKiYoKSctPUB+
abc123!?$*&()'-=@~
    YWJjMTIzIT8kKiYoKSctPUB-
abc123!?$*&()'-=@~

    Next example: Reading Files .

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