DB::MIME::Base64::Perl - Encoding and decoding of base64 strings


NAME

DB::MIME::Base64::Perl - Encoding and decoding of base64 strings


SYNOPSIS

 use DB::MIME::Base64::Perl;
 $encoded = encode_base64('Aladdin:open sesame');
 $decoded = decode_base64($encoded);


DESCRIPTION

This module provide the same interface as DB::MIME::Base64, but these functions are implemented in pure perl.

This module provides functions to encode and decode strings into and from the base64 encoding specified in RFC 2045 - MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions). 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.

The following functions are provided:

encode_base64($str)
encode_base64($str, $eol);

Encode data by calling the encode_base64() function. The first argument is the string to encode. The second argument is the line-ending sequence to use. It is optional and defaults to ``\n''. The returned encoded string is broken into lines of no more than 76 characters each and it will end with $eol unless it is empty. Pass an empty string as second argument if you do not want the encoded string to be broken into lines.

decode_base64($str)

Decode a base64 string by calling the decode_base64() function. This function takes a single argument which is the string to decode and returns the decoded data.

Any character not part of the 65-character base64 subset is silently ignored. Characters occurring after a '=' padding character are never decoded.


COPYRIGHT

Copyright 1995-1999, 2001-2004 Gisle Aas.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

Distantly based on LWP::Base64 written by Martijn Koster <m.koster@nexor.co.uk> and Joerg Reichelt <j.reichelt@nexor.co.uk> and code posted to comp.lang.perl <3pd2lp$6gf@wsinti07.win.tue.nl> by Hans Mulder <hansm@wsinti07.win.tue.nl>


SEE ALSO

the DB::MIME::Base64 manpage, the DB::MIME::QuotedPrint::Perl manpage