Day 18: Base64

Base64 is a group of binary-to-text encoding schemes that represent binary data (more specifically, a sequence of 8-bit bytes) in an ASCII string format by translating the data into a radix-64 representation. The term Base64 originates from a specific MIME content transfer encoding. Each non-final Base64 digit represents exactly 6 bits of data. Three 8-bit bytes (i.e., a total of 24 bits) can therefore be represented by four 6-bit Base64 digits.

Common to all binary-to-text encoding schemes, Base64 is designed to carry data stored in binary formats across channels that only reliably support text content. Base64 is used to embed image files or other binary assets inside textual assets such as HTML and CSS files. Base64 is also widely used for sending e-mail attachments.

Base64 encode and decode:

var Day18 = {
    characters: "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=" ,

    encode: function( string )
    {
        var characters = Base64.characters;
        var result     = '';

        var i = 0;
        do {
            var a = string.charCodeAt(i++);
            var b = string.charCodeAt(i++);
            var c = string.charCodeAt(i++);

            a = a ? a : 0;
            b = b ? b : 0;
            c = c ? c : 0;

            var b1 = ( a >> 2 ) & 0x3F;
            var b2 = ( ( a & 0x3 ) << 4 ) | ( ( b >> 4 ) & 0xF );
            var b3 = ( ( b & 0xF ) << 2 ) | ( ( c >> 6 ) & 0x3 );
            var b4 = c & 0x3F;

            if( ! b ) {
                b3 = b4 = 64;
            } else if( ! c ) {
                b4 = 64;
            }

            result += Base64.characters.charAt( b1 ) + Base64.characters.charAt( b2 ) + Base64.characters.charAt( b3 ) + Base64.characters.charAt( b4 );

        } while ( i < string.length );

        return result;
    } ,

    decode: function( string )
    {
        var characters = Base64.characters;
        var result     = '';

        var i = 0;
        do {
            var b1 = Base64.characters.indexOf( string.charAt(i++) );
            var b2 = Base64.characters.indexOf( string.charAt(i++) );
            var b3 = Base64.characters.indexOf( string.charAt(i++) );
            var b4 = Base64.characters.indexOf( string.charAt(i++) );

            var a = ( ( b1 & 0x3F ) << 2 ) | ( ( b2 >> 4 ) & 0x3 );
            var b = ( ( b2 & 0xF  ) << 4 ) | ( ( b3 >> 2 ) & 0xF );
            var c = ( ( b3 & 0x3  ) << 6 ) | ( b4 & 0x3F );

            result += String.fromCharCode(a) + (b?String.fromCharCode(b):'') + (c?String.fromCharCode(c):'');

        } while( i < string.length );

        return result;
    }
};