Base64 Encode

What Is Encoding?

Encoding is the simple process of converting information or instruction into some specific form.

Suppose there are three applications: A, B, and C.

• Application A is using the X encoding scheme.
• Application B uses the Y encoding scheme, which is a subset of the X encoding scheme.
• Application C uses the same encoding scheme as application A.

Let it be more specific.

• Application A is using the UTF-8 encoding scheme. That can potentially encode 2,164,864 characters.
• Application B uses the ASCII encoding scheme, potentially encoding 128 characters (just a small fraction of the UTF-8 encoding scheme). 
• Application C is using the same encoding scheme as application A (UTF-8 encoding scheme).

The best solution is to send the data from Application A to C. Sending the encoded data from Application A to B would cause many problems because Application B would not interpret some of the data sent from Application A correctly.

There is another encoding scheme called Base64 Encode.

Base64 is simply a binary to ASCII encoding scheme. That encoding scheme is used to store and transfer binary data over the medium. It is designed to deal with textual data and does not support binary data, such as when embedding an image into a database, CSS files, or HTML.

A base64 encoded string looks like this: R3JlZXRpbmcgYnkgdXJsLWRlY29kZS5jb20=

Base64 encoding scheme uses the same 64 characters that are present in the majority of character sets. Therefore, these are not used as controlled characters on the internet. So when you encode with Base64, you are confident that your data will decode at the destination without any issue.

These characters are

• Upper case alphabet characters A-Z.
• Lowercase alphabet characters a-z.
• Number characters 0–9.
• Characters + and /.
• The character = is used for padding.

Bytes that formed the data are broken into 24 bits (3*8, three bytes at a time). These three bytes (24 bits) are broken into four packs of 6 bits each. Those 6 bits form a number corresponding to the index in the character set supported by the Base64 encoding scheme. 

But what if the number of characters to be encoded does not come with a multiple of six bits?

Then, zeros will be added to complete the last six-bit sequence.

If the number of bytes is not in numbers of three, then padding is used;

== for 1 byte  and = 2 bytes

In simple, Base64 encoding converts the three bytes of data into four base64 encoded characters.

Some major Base64 implementations are.

• It is used to store and transfer the data without data corruption.
• It embeds the files within the web pages and scripts to avoid external file dependency.
• It is used to obfuscate the data, even though the final result is not human-readable. However, it cannot be used as a security mechanism because it can be decoded.
• Data hashing schemes like SHA and MD5 often produce results that are not human-readable and transferable. Therefore, the hash data is usually converted to Base64 encoded form to be displayed readily. 

The Base64 encoding scheme is widely used and preferred over other encoding schemes like HEX encoding and Decimal encoding because

• It includes the 64 characters that are present in the majority of character sets. Therefore, these are not used as controlled characters on the internet. So, when you encode with Base64, you are confident that your data will arrive at the destination without interruption.
• The HEX encoding scheme encodes each byte into the Hex pair, resulting in two bytes after encoding.
• In Decimal encoding, each byte of data represents three numbers. That means each byte of encoded data results in three bytes of data.

The data will be encoded using the Base64 encoding scheme. Perform the following steps.

• Open the Online Base64 Encode tool. 
• You can either copy and paste the data, use the "Load from URL" option, or upload it using the "Browse" option.
• After uploading the data, click on the "Base64 Encode" button.
• The tool will convert the provided data into Base64 encoded format.
• Please copy the resulting data and paste it into the desired location.
• You can decode the data using the same tool or using the Online Base64 Decode tool.

Checking the results by using the sample data is beneficial. It shows you the output and removes the ambiguity that you may have related to the tool.

To use that option, do the following steps.

• Click on the "Load Sample Data" button. 
• A sample data will appear "Greeting by url-decode.com" in the above section.
• Click on the "Base64 Encode" button.
• The tool will perform the Base64 encoding scheme and provide you with the result that R3JlZXRpbmcgYnkgdXJsLWRlY29kZS5jb20= form.

Note: We do not keep a copy of the resulting Base64-encoded form. Therefore, please copy the resulting Base64-encoded format, paste it to the desired location for future use if you are happy, and be satisfied with the results.