OS X: Base64 encode via command line

Question

Is there a terminal command in Mac OS X which will base64 encode a file or stdin?

Answer 1

openssl can do this for you, and it's all installed with OS X by default; no need to install darwinports.

$ openssl base64 -in <infile> -out <outfile>

Without the -in option reads from stdin

Answer 2

In terms of speed, I would use openssl followed by perl, followed by uuencode. In terms of portability, I would use uuencode followed by Perl followed by openssl (If you care about reusing the code on as many other UNIX like stock platforms as possible). Be careful though because not all UNIX variants support the -m switch (iirc AIX does, HP/UX does, Solaris doesn't).

$ time perl -MMIME::Base64 -e 'undef $/;while(<>){print encode_base64($_);}' \
> out.jpg 1>filename.b64
real    0m0.025s

$ time uuencode -m -o filename.b64 out.jpg filename_when_uudecoded.txt
real    0m0.051s

$  time openssl base64 -in out.jpg -out filename.b64 
real    0m0.017s

Use the -m switch to uuencode file_in.txt per base64 as specified by RFC1521 and write it to filename.b64 (with filename_when_uudecoded.txt as the default filename when decoded):

uuencode -m -o filename.b64 file_in.txt filename_when_uudecoded.txt

STDIN example:

cat file_in.txt | uuencode -m -o filename.b64 filename_when_uudecoded.txt

Answer 3

Openssl can be used more succinctly:

echo 'input' | openssl base64

or

openssl base64 <ENTER> [type input] <CTRL+D>

Answer 4

There is Perl plus MIME::Base64:

perl -MMIME::Base64 -e 'undef $/;while(<>){print encode_base64($_);}'

This comes pre-installed. You can specify separate files on the command line (or supply the data on standard input); each file is separately encoded. You can also do:

perl -i.txt -MMIME::Base64 -e 'undef $/;while(<>){print encode_base64($_);}' file1

This backs up file1 to file1.txt, and writes the Base-64 encoded output over the original file.

Answer 5

uuencode -m [-o output_file] [file] name

Where name is the name to display in the encoded header.

Example:

cat docbook-xsl.css | uuencode -m docbook-xsl.css

or

uuencode -m -o docbook-xsl.css.b64 docbook-xsl.css docbook-xsl.css

Answer 6

Let me expand on Steve Folly's answer:

$ openssl base64 -in image.ext -out image_base64.txt

Just an easier-to-use representation.

Answer 7

recode should do the trick for you

recode ../b64 < file.txt > file.b64

Here is the darwinports page for recode if its not already available.