3.7 basenc: Transform data into printable data ¶

basenc transforms data read from a file, or standard input, into (or from) various common encoding forms. The encoded form uses printable ASCII characters to represent binary data.

Synopses:

basenc encoding [option]... [file]
basenc encoding --decode [option]... [file]

The encoding argument is required. If file is omitted, basenc reads from standard input. The -w/--wrap,-i/--ignore-garbage, -d/--decode options of this command are precisely the same as for base64. See base64: Transform data into printable data.

Supported encodings are:

‘--base64’ ¶

Encode into (or decode from with -d/--decode) base64 form. The format conforms to RFC 4648#4. Equivalent to the base64 command.

‘--base64url’ ¶

Encode into (or decode from with -d/--decode) file-and-url-safe base64 form (using ‘_’ and ‘-’ instead of ‘+’ and ‘/’). The format conforms to RFC 4648#5.

‘--base58’ ¶

Encode into (or decode from with -d/--decode) base58 form. The format conforms to Base58 draft. This encoding is useful for transcription as the output avoids visually similar characters. It’s best suited to smaller amounts of data. For example this generates a unique 128 bit ID in 22 bytes:

uuidgen | basenc --base16 -di | basenc --base58

‘--base32’ ¶

Encode into (or decode from with -d/--decode) base32 form. The encoded data uses the ‘ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ234567=’ characters. The format conforms to RFC 4648#6. Equivalent to the base32 command.

‘--base32hex’ ¶

Encode into (or decode from with -d/--decode) Extended Hex Alphabet base32 form. The encoded data uses the ‘0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUV=’ characters. The format conforms to RFC 4648#7.

‘--base16’ ¶

Encode into (or decode from with -d/--decode) base16 (hexadecimal) form. The encoded data uses the ‘0123456789ABCDEF’ characters. The format conforms to RFC 4648#8.

‘--base2lsbf’ ¶

Encode into (or decode from with -d/--decode) binary string form (‘0’ and ‘1’) with the least significant bit of every byte first.

‘--base2msbf’ ¶

Encode into (or decode from with -d/--decode) binary string form (‘0’ and ‘1’) with the most significant bit of every byte first.

‘--z85’ ¶

Encode into (or decode from with -d/--decode) Z85 form (a modified Ascii85 form). The encoded data uses the ‘0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTU VWXYZ.-:+=^!/*?&<>()[]{}@%$#’. characters. The format conforms to ZeroMQ spec:32/Z85.

When encoding with --z85, input length must be a multiple of 4; when decoding with --z85, input length must be a multiple of 5.

Encoding/decoding examples:

$ printf '\376\117\202' | basenc --base64
/k+C

$ printf '\376\117\202' | basenc --base64url
_k-C

$ printf '\376\117\202' | basenc --base32
7ZHYE===

$ printf '\376\117\202' | basenc --base32hex
VP7O4===

$ printf '\376\117\202' | basenc --base16
FE4F82

$ printf '\376\117\202' | basenc --base2lsbf
011111111111001001000001

$ printf '\376\117\202' | basenc --base2msbf
111111100100111110000010

$ printf '\376\117\202\000' | basenc --z85
@.FaC

$ printf 01010100 | basenc --base2msbf --decode
T

$ printf 01010100 | basenc --base2lsbf --decode
*