How to do Base64 encoding in node.js?

Question

Does node.js have built-in base64 encoding yet?

The reason why I ask this is that final() from crypto can only output hex, binary or ascii

Answer 1

I am using following code to decode base64 string in node API nodejs version 10.7.0

let data = 'c3RhY2thYnVzZS5jb20=';  // Base64 string
let buff = new Buffer(data, 'base64');  //Buffer
let text = buff.toString('ascii');  //this is the data type that you want your Base64 data to convert to
console.log('"' + data + '" converted from Base64 to ASCII is "' + text + '"'); 

Please don't try to run above code in console of the browser, won't work. Put the code in server side files of nodejs. I am using above line code in API development.

Answer 2

The accepted answer previously contained new Buffer(), which is considered a security issue in node versions greater than 6 (although it seems likely for this usecase that the input can always be coerced to a string).

The Buffer constructor is deprecated according to the documentation.

Here is an example of a vulnerability that can result from using it in the ws library.

The code snippets should read:

console.log(Buffer.from("Hello World").toString('base64'));
console.log(Buffer.from("SGVsbG8gV29ybGQ=", 'base64').toString('ascii'));

After this answer was written, it has been updated and now matches this.

Answer 3

You can do base64 encoding and decoding with simple javascript.

    $("input").keyup(function () {
     var value = $(this).val(),
         hash = Base64.encode(value);
     $(".test").html(hash);

     var decode = Base64.decode(hash);

     $(".decode").html(decode);
 });

var Base64={_keyStr:"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=",encode:function(e){var t="";var n,r,i,s,o,u,a;var f=0;e=Base64._utf8_encode(e);while(f<e.length){n=e.charCodeAt(f++);r=e.charCodeAt(f++);i=e.charCodeAt(f++);s=n>>2;o=(n&3)<<4|r>>4;u=(r&15)<<2|i>>6;a=i&63;if(isNaN(r)){u=a=64}else if(isNaN(i)){a=64}t=t+this._keyStr.charAt(s)+this._keyStr.charAt(o)+this._keyStr.charAt(u)+this._keyStr.charAt(a)}return t},decode:function(e){var t="";var n,r,i;var s,o,u,a;var f=0;e=e.replace(/[^A-Za-z0-9+/=]/g,"");while(f<e.length){s=this._keyStr.indexOf(e.charAt(f++));o=this._keyStr.indexOf(e.charAt(f++));u=this._keyStr.indexOf(e.charAt(f++));a=this._keyStr.indexOf(e.charAt(f++));n=s<<2|o>>4;r=(o&15)<<4|u>>2;i=(u&3)<<6|a;t=t+String.fromCharCode(n);if(u!=64){t=t+String.fromCharCode(r)}if(a!=64){t=t+String.fromCharCode(i)}}t=Base64._utf8_decode(t);return t},_utf8_encode:function(e){e=e.replace(/rn/g,"n");var t="";for(var n=0;n<e.length;n++){var r=e.charCodeAt(n);if(r<128){t+=String.fromCharCode(r)}else if(r>127&&r<2048){t+=String.fromCharCode(r>>6|192);t+=String.fromCharCode(r&63|128)}else{t+=String.fromCharCode(r>>12|224);t+=String.fromCharCode(r>>6&63|128);t+=String.fromCharCode(r&63|128)}}return t},_utf8_decode:function(e){var t="";var n=0;var r=c1=c2=0;while(n<e.length){r=e.charCodeAt(n);if(r<128){t+=String.fromCharCode(r);n++}else if(r>191&&r<224){c2=e.charCodeAt(n+1);t+=String.fromCharCode((r&31)<<6|c2&63);n+=2}else{c2=e.charCodeAt(n+1);c3=e.charCodeAt(n+2);t+=String.fromCharCode((r&15)<<12|(c2&63)<<6|c3&63);n+=3}}return t}}

// Define the string
var string = 'Hello World!';

// Encode the String
var encodedString = Base64.encode(string);
console.log(encodedString); // Outputs: "SGVsbG8gV29ybGQh"

// Decode the String
var decodedString = Base64.decode(encodedString);
console.log(decodedString); // Outputs: "Hello World!"</script></div>

This is implemented in this Base64 encoder decoder

Answer 4

Buffers can be used for taking a string or piece of data and doing base64 encoding of the result. For example:

You can install Buffer via npm like :- npm i buffer --save

you can use this in your js file like this :-

var buffer = require('buffer/').Buffer;

->> console.log(buffer.from("Hello Vishal Thakur").toString('base64'));
SGVsbG8gVmlzaGFsIFRoYWt1cg==  // Result

->> console.log(buffer.from("SGVsbG8gVmlzaGFsIFRoYWt1cg==", 'base64').toString('ascii'))
Hello Vishal Thakur   // Result

Answer 5

crypto now supports base64 (reference):

cipher.final('base64') 

So you could simply do:

var cipher = crypto.createCipheriv('des-ede3-cbc', encryption_key, iv);
var ciph = cipher.update(plaintext, 'utf8', 'base64');
ciph += cipher.final('base64');

var decipher = crypto.createDecipheriv('des-ede3-cbc', encryption_key, iv);
var txt = decipher.update(ciph, 'base64', 'utf8');
txt += decipher.final('utf8');

Answer 6

I have created a ultimate small js npm library for the base64 encode/decode conversion in Node.js.

Installation

npm install nodejs-base64-converter --save

Usage

var nodeBase64 = require('nodejs-base64-converter');

console.log(nodeBase64.encode("test text")); //dGVzdCB0ZXh0
console.log(nodeBase64.decode("dGVzdCB0ZXh0")); //test text