What is encoding / decoding ?
Encoding refers to the process of translating a file into an ASCII based string.
Decoding refers to the process of decoding the ASCII based string.
In order to perform this decoding/encoding process Base64 is typically used. Base64 is a program that converts each 6 bits and then converts this to an ASCII based character out of a 64 ASCII character set. (this includes the characters of azAZ09+/.
Why would I want to do this ?
This is useful for situations were you need to transfer binary files across systems that have no network connectivity. Other applications were this is used is with SMTP which being a completely ASCII based protocol uses encoding to send any binary or not ASCII based data to the recipient.
Example
Below we will be encoding and decoding a floppy disc image.
1. On the first machine we will be encoding the file into an ASCII based string.
Note : we use the file command to confirm the file type.
[root@host1 tmp]# file vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp: DOS floppy 1440k, x86 hard disk boot sector [root@host1 tmp]# base64 vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp > vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp.encoded [root@host1 tmp]# head -n3 vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp.encoded 6zyQTVNET1M1LjAAAgEBAALgAEAL8AkAEgACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAApUpcW7E5PIE5BTUUgICAgRkFU MTIgICAzyY7RvPB7jtm4ACCOwPy9AHw4TiR9JIvBmeg8AXIcg+s6ZqEcfCZmOwcmilf8dQaAygKI VgKAwxBz6zPJikYQmPdmFgNGHBNWHgNGDhPRi3YRYIlG/IlW/rggAPfmi14LA8NI9 [root@host1 tmp]# file vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp.encoded vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp.encoded: ASCII text
2. Once we have copy and pasted the ASCII text to the other machine (into the file vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp.encoded) we decode the file back into its original floppy image format.
[root@host2 tmp]# cat vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp.encoded | base64 -di > vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp.decoded [root@host2 tmp]# file vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp.decoded vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp.decoded: DOS floppy 1440k, x86 hard disk boot sector
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