base64 decode snippet in c++

Question

Anyone have a freely available base64 decoding code snippet in c++?

Answer 1

Here's my modification of the implementation that was originally written by René Nyffenegger. And why have I modified it? Well, because it didn't seem appropriate to me that I should work with binary data stored within std::string object ;)

base64.h:

#ifndef _BASE64_H_
#define _BASE64_H_

#include <vector>
#include <string>
typedef unsigned char BYTE;

std::string base64_encode(BYTE const* buf, unsigned int bufLen);
std::vector<BYTE> base64_decode(std::string const&);

#endif

base64.cpp:

#include "base64.h"
#include <iostream>

static const std::string base64_chars = 
             "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
             "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
             "0123456789+/";


static inline bool is_base64(BYTE c) {
  return (isalnum(c) || (c == '+') || (c == '/'));
}

std::string base64_encode(BYTE const* buf, unsigned int bufLen) {
  std::string ret;
  int i = 0;
  int j = 0;
  BYTE char_array_3[3];
  BYTE char_array_4[4];

  while (bufLen--) {
    char_array_3[i++] = *(buf++);
    if (i == 3) {
      char_array_4[0] = (char_array_3[0] & 0xfc) >> 2;
      char_array_4[1] = ((char_array_3[0] & 0x03) << 4) + ((char_array_3[1] & 0xf0) >> 4);
      char_array_4[2] = ((char_array_3[1] & 0x0f) << 2) + ((char_array_3[2] & 0xc0) >> 6);
      char_array_4[3] = char_array_3[2] & 0x3f;

      for(i = 0; (i <4) ; i++)
        ret += base64_chars[char_array_4[i]];
      i = 0;
    }
  }

  if (i)
  {
    for(j = i; j < 3; j++)
      char_array_3[j] = '\0';

    char_array_4[0] = (char_array_3[0] & 0xfc) >> 2;
    char_array_4[1] = ((char_array_3[0] & 0x03) << 4) + ((char_array_3[1] & 0xf0) >> 4);
    char_array_4[2] = ((char_array_3[1] & 0x0f) << 2) + ((char_array_3[2] & 0xc0) >> 6);
    char_array_4[3] = char_array_3[2] & 0x3f;

    for (j = 0; (j < i + 1); j++)
      ret += base64_chars[char_array_4[j]];

    while((i++ < 3))
      ret += '=';
  }

  return ret;
}

std::vector<BYTE> base64_decode(std::string const& encoded_string) {
  int in_len = encoded_string.size();
  int i = 0;
  int j = 0;
  int in_ = 0;
  BYTE char_array_4[4], char_array_3[3];
  std::vector<BYTE> ret;

  while (in_len-- && ( encoded_string[in_] != '=') && is_base64(encoded_string[in_])) {
    char_array_4[i++] = encoded_string[in_]; in_++;
    if (i ==4) {
      for (i = 0; i <4; i++)
        char_array_4[i] = base64_chars.find(char_array_4[i]);

      char_array_3[0] = (char_array_4[0] << 2) + ((char_array_4[1] & 0x30) >> 4);
      char_array_3[1] = ((char_array_4[1] & 0xf) << 4) + ((char_array_4[2] & 0x3c) >> 2);
      char_array_3[2] = ((char_array_4[2] & 0x3) << 6) + char_array_4[3];

      for (i = 0; (i < 3); i++)
          ret.push_back(char_array_3[i]);
      i = 0;
    }
  }

  if (i) {
    for (j = i; j <4; j++)
      char_array_4[j] = 0;

    for (j = 0; j <4; j++)
      char_array_4[j] = base64_chars.find(char_array_4[j]);

    char_array_3[0] = (char_array_4[0] << 2) + ((char_array_4[1] & 0x30) >> 4);
    char_array_3[1] = ((char_array_4[1] & 0xf) << 4) + ((char_array_4[2] & 0x3c) >> 2);
    char_array_3[2] = ((char_array_4[2] & 0x3) << 6) + char_array_4[3];

    for (j = 0; (j < i - 1); j++) ret.push_back(char_array_3[j]);
  }

  return ret;
}

Here's the usage:

std::vector<BYTE> myData;
...
std::string encodedData = base64_encode(&myData[0], myData.size());
std::vector<BYTE> decodedData = base64_decode(encodedData);

I hope that someone will find this answer helpful ^^