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base64

The base64 library encodes and decodes data using standard Base64, with Python-compatible function names. Inputs may be a bytes value or a string (UTF-8 encoded); decoding always returns a bytes value, so call .decode() on the result if you need a string.

Available Functions

Function Description
b64encode(s) Encode a bytes or str value to a Base64 str.
b64decode(s) Decode a Base64 str, returning bytes; raises if s is not valid Base64.

Example

import base64

encoded = base64.b64encode("hello world")      # str input is UTF-8 encoded first
print(encoded)                                 # aGVsbG8gd29ybGQ=
print(base64.b64encode(b"hello world") == encoded)  # True

decoded = base64.b64decode(encoded)            # always bytes
print(decoded)                                 # b'hello world'
print(decoded.decode())                        # hello world

Differences from Python

  • b64encode() accepts a str (encoded as UTF-8) and returns a str, where Python requires and returns bytes.
  • b64decode() requires a str and raises on invalid input (Python silently discards invalid characters by default).
  • Only standard Base64 is provided; there is no urlsafe_b64encode, b32encode, b16encode or a85encode.

See Also

  • hashlib: cryptographic hash functions.
  • hmac: message authentication codes.
  • bytes: the binary type returned by b64decode().