Using Javascript's atob to decode base64 doesn't properly decode utf-8 strings

Question

I\'m using the Javascript window.atob() function to decode a base64-encoded string (specifically the base64-encoded content from the GitHub API). Problem is I\'

Answer 1

Here is 2018 updated solution as described in the Mozilla Development Resources

TO ENCODE FROM UNICODE TO B64

function b64EncodeUnicode(str) {
    // first we use encodeURIComponent to get percent-encoded UTF-8,
    // then we convert the percent encodings into raw bytes which
    // can be fed into btoa.
    return btoa(encodeURIComponent(str).replace(/%([0-9A-F]{2})/g,
        function toSolidBytes(match, p1) {
            return String.fromCharCode('0x' + p1);
    }));
}

b64EncodeUnicode('✓ à la mode'); // "4pyTIMOgIGxhIG1vZGU="
b64EncodeUnicode('\n'); // "Cg=="

TO DECODE FROM B64 TO UNICODE

function b64DecodeUnicode(str) {
    // Going backwards: from bytestream, to percent-encoding, to original string.
    return decodeURIComponent(atob(str).split('').map(function(c) {
        return '%' + ('00' + c.charCodeAt(0).toString(16)).slice(-2);
    }).join(''));
}

b64DecodeUnicode('4pyTIMOgIGxhIG1vZGU='); // "✓ à la mode"
b64DecodeUnicode('Cg=='); // "\n"