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NAME

encode_base64 - Encode string using base64 encoding

decode_base64 - Decode base64 string

SYNOPSIS 

 use MIME::Base64;


 $encoded = encode_base64('Aladdin:open sesame');
 $decoded = decode_base64($encoded);

DESCRIPTION

This module provides functions to encode and decode strings into the Base64 encoding specified in RFC 1521 - 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.

RFC 1521 says that the encoded bytes must be represented in lines of no more than 76 characters each. The second argument to encode_base64() is the line ending sequence to use. It defaults to "\n". Use an empty string as second argument if you do not want the encoded string broken into lines.

If you prefer not to import these routines into your namespace you can call them as: 

  use MIME::Base64 ();
  $encoded = MIME::Base64::encode('Aladdin:open sesame');
  $decoded = MIME::Base64::decode($encoded);

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 1995, 1996 Gisle Aas.

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

AUTHOR

Gisle Aas

Based on LWP::Base64 written by Martijn Koster and Joerg Reichelt and code posted to comp.lang.perl <3pd2lp$6gf@wsinti07.win.tue.nl> by Hans Mulder