[Python-Dev] Why can't I encode/decode base64 without importing a module?

Tres Seaver tseaver at palladion.com
Wed Apr 24 19:01:10 CEST 2013


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 04/23/2013 09:29 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> By RFC specification, BASE64 is a *textual* representation of
> arbitrary binary data.

It isn't "text" in the sense Py3k means:  it is a representation for
transmission on-the-wire for protocols which requre 7-bit-safe data.
Nobody working with base64-encoded data is going to expect to do "normal"
string processing on that data:  the closest thing to that is splitting
it into 72-byte chunks for transmission via e-mail.

Tres.
- -- 
===================================================================
Tres Seaver          +1 540-429-0999          tseaver at palladion.com
Palladion Software   "Excellence by Design"    http://palladion.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with undefined - http://www.enigmail.net/

iEYEARECAAYFAlF4D9YACgkQ+gerLs4ltQ5nUACfWm4YEMarjUb7fEEpP+aMtaQr
a7kAn1Pc8ufUwJzKHD0DgSxQ4H/uqf82
=CzTZ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----



More information about the Python-Dev mailing list