Base64

The <a href="/ruby/Base64">Base64</a> module provides for the encoding (#encode64) and decoding (#decode64) of binary data using a Base64 representation.

The following particular features are also provided:

• encode into lines of a given length (#b64encode)
• decode the special format specified in RFC2047 for the representation of email headers (decode_b)

Example

A simple encoding and decoding.

    require "base64"

    enc   = Base64.encode64('Send reinforcements')
                        # -> "U2VuZCByZWluZm9yY2VtZW50cw==\n"
    plain = Base64.decode64(enc)
                        # -> "Send reinforcements"

The purpose of using base64 to encode data is that it translates any binary data into purely printable characters. It is specified in RFC 2045 (http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2045.html).