I am wondering which library to use for base64 encoding/decoding? I need this functionality be stable enough for production use.
-
3You could do a search before asking. Just google 'java base64'.Moha Dehghan– Moha Dehghan2013-01-19 10:08:30 +00:00Commented Jan 19, 2013 at 10:08
Add a comment
|
4 Answers
Java 9
Use the Java 8 solution. Note DatatypeConverter can still be used, but it is now within the java.xml.bind module which will need to be included.
module org.example.foo {
requires java.xml.bind;
}
Java 8
Java 8 now provides java.util.Base64 for encoding and decoding base64.
Encoding
byte[] message = "hello world".getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
String encoded = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(message);
System.out.println(encoded);
// => aGVsbG8gd29ybGQ=
Decoding
byte[] decoded = Base64.getDecoder().decode("aGVsbG8gd29ybGQ=");
System.out.println(new String(decoded, StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
// => hello world
Java 6 and 7
Since Java 6 the lesser known class javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter can be used. This is part of the JRE, no extra libraries required.
Encoding
byte[] message = "hello world".getBytes("UTF-8");
String encoded = DatatypeConverter.printBase64Binary(message);
System.out.println(encoded);
// => aGVsbG8gd29ybGQ=
Decoding
byte[] decoded = DatatypeConverter.parseBase64Binary("aGVsbG8gd29ybGQ=");
System.out.println(new String(decoded, "UTF-8"));
// => hello world
4 Comments
Semaphor
I used so far the Base64 class, but now I had to run one application with Java 7. I didn't know the DatatypeConverter class so far. Thanks.
bedrin
DatatypeConverter won't work out of the box Java 9
pstanton
thanks for java 7 solution - can't believe i still needed that!!
dynamicJos
parseBase64Binary does not work for data larger than 64k ? what to use in that case(being using java 7 only)
Within Apache Commons, commons-codec-1.7.jar contains a Base64 class which can be used to encode.
Via Maven:
<dependency>
<groupId>commons-codec</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-codec</artifactId>
<version>20041127.091804</version>
</dependency>
2 Comments
jwj
Apache Commons does indeed provide a viable Base64 decoder one can use. You might especially want to use this for Java versions earlier than 1.8, but there are much, much newer version of the library that can be used. As of this writing you could use 1.11 which is much newer than 20041127.091804 (referenced above).
If you're an Android developer you can use android.util.Base64 class for this purpose.
3 Comments
vinicius gati
the problem is that only api 26+ run this... 8% of devices have this version in 2019... so sad.
nitzanj
@viniciusgati
Base64 was added in api level 8, that pretty much means it's supported on 100% of devices in existence.
Andrew T.
@viniciusgati note that Android has 2
Base64 classes: android.util.Base64 (since API 8) and java.util.Base64 (since API 26). Be careful with the package name when importing it.Guava also has Base64 (among other encodings and incredibly useful stuff)
1 Comment
alphanumeric character
Guava is also 22k methods, which might not be a big deal for you unless you are importing a lot of other libraries as well. I recently hit this lovely wall myself (65k method limit on DEX) and after removing everything I didn't need from google play, I was only 100 methods under the limit. However, after removing guava, I regained roughly 22k methods.