Python: Compactly and reversibly encode large integer as base64 or base16 having variable or fixed length

Question

I want to compactly encode a large unsigned or signed integer having an arbitrary number of bits into a base64, base32, or base16 (hexadecimal) representation. The output wi

Answer 1

This answer is motivated in part by disparate comments by Erik A., such as for this answer. The integer is first compactly converted to bytes, following which the bytes are encoded to a variable base.

from typing import Callable, Optional
import base64

class IntBaseEncoder:
    """Reversibly encode an unsigned or signed integer into a customizable encoding of a variable or fixed length."""
    # Ref: https://stackoverflow.com/a/54152763/
    def __init__(self, encoding: str, *, bits: Optional[int] = None, signed: bool = False):
        """
        :param encoder: Name of encoding from base64 module, e.g. b64, urlsafe_b64, b32, b16, etc.
        :param bits: Max bit length of int which is to be encoded. If specified, the encoding is of a fixed length,
        otherwise of a variable length.
        :param signed: If True, integers are considered signed, otherwise unsigned.
        """
        self._decoder: Callable[[bytes], bytes] = getattr(base64, f'{encoding}decode')
        self._encoder: Callable[[bytes], bytes] = getattr(base64, f'{encoding}encode')
        self.signed: bool = signed
        self.bytes_length: Optional[int] = bits and self._bytes_length(2 ** bits - 1)

    def _bytes_length(self, i: int) -> int:
        return (i.bit_length() + 7 + self.signed) // 8

    def encode(self, i: int) -> bytes:
        length = self.bytes_length or self._bytes_length(i)
        i_bytes = i.to_bytes(length, byteorder='big', signed=self.signed)
        return self._encoder(i_bytes)

    def decode(self, b64: bytes) -> int:
        i_bytes = self._decoder(b64)
        return int.from_bytes(i_bytes, byteorder='big', signed=self.signed)

# Tests:
import unittest

class TestIntBaseEncoder(unittest.TestCase):

    ENCODINGS = ('b85', 'b64', 'urlsafe_b64', 'b32', 'b16')

    def test_unsigned_with_variable_length(self):
        for encoding in self.ENCODINGS:
            encoder = IntBaseEncoder(encoding)
            previous_length = 0
            for i in range(1234):
                encoded = encoder.encode(i)
                self.assertGreaterEqual(len(encoded), previous_length)
                self.assertEqual(i, encoder.decode(encoded))

    def test_signed_with_variable_length(self):
        for encoding in self.ENCODINGS:
            encoder = IntBaseEncoder(encoding, signed=True)
            previous_length = 0
            for i in range(-1234, 1234):
                encoded = encoder.encode(i)
                self.assertGreaterEqual(len(encoded), previous_length)
                self.assertEqual(i, encoder.decode(encoded))

    def test_unsigned_with_fixed_length(self):
        for encoding in self.ENCODINGS:
            for maxint in range(257):
                encoder = IntBaseEncoder(encoding, bits=maxint.bit_length())
                maxlen = len(encoder.encode(maxint))
                for i in range(maxint + 1):
                    encoded = encoder.encode(i)
                    self.assertEqual(len(encoded), maxlen)
                    self.assertEqual(i, encoder.decode(encoded))

    def test_signed_with_fixed_length(self):
        for encoding in self.ENCODINGS:
            for maxint in range(257):
                encoder = IntBaseEncoder(encoding, bits=maxint.bit_length(), signed=True)
                maxlen = len(encoder.encode(maxint))
                for i in range(-maxint, maxint + 1):
                    encoded = encoder.encode(i)
                    self.assertEqual(len(encoded), maxlen)
                    self.assertEqual(i, encoder.decode(encoded))

if __name__ == '__main__':
    unittest.main()

If using the output as a filename, initializing the encoder with the encoding 'urlsafe_b64' or even 'b16' are safer choices.

Usage examples:

# Variable length encoding
>>> encoder = IntBaseEncoder('urlsafe_b64')
>>> encoder.encode(12345)
b'MDk='
>>> encoder.decode(_)
12345

# Fixed length encoding
>>> encoder = IntBaseEncoder('b16', bits=32)
>>> encoder.encode(12345)
b'00003039'
>>> encoder.encode(123456789)
b'075BCD15'
>>> encoder.decode(_)
123456789

# Signed
encoder = IntBaseEncoder('b32', signed=True)
encoder.encode(-12345)
b'Z7DQ===='
encoder.decode(_)
-12345