Base64 encoding in python3

Question

my script includes this line:

encoded = "Basic " + s.encode("base64").rstrip()

But gives me back the error:

LookupError: 'base64' is not a text encoding; use codecs.encode() to handle arbitrary codecs

This line seemed to work fine in python 2 but since switching to 3 I get the error

If you want to do Base64 encoding in Python 3, you'd probably want to use the base64 module. — Sean Francis N. Ballais
– Sean Francis N. Ballais, Commented Oct 3, 2017 at 14:25

warvariuc · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-03 14:25:33Z

9

This string codec was removed in Python 3. Use base64 module:

Python 3.6.1 (default, Mar 23 2017, 16:49:06)

>>> import base64
>>> base64.b64encode('whatever')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python3/3.6.1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/base64.py", line 58, in b64encode
    encoded = binascii.b2a_base64(s, newline=False)
TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'
>>> base64.b64encode(b'whatever')
b'd2hhdGV2ZXI='
>>>

Don't forget to convert the data to bytes.

answered Oct 3, 2017 at 14:25

warvariuc

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6 Comments

Sean Francis N. Ballais Over a year ago

In addition to this, you may want to use bytes() to convert a str to a bytes-like object. For example, bytes('python3', 'utf-8') would give us b'python3'.

mata Over a year ago

It wasn't removed, it just can't be used with str.encode() anymore because it translates bytes to bytes and is not a text encoding for that reason. codecs.encode(b'whatever', 'base64') is closer to what was used in python2, and you don't have to remember which module to import for which codec.

warvariuc Over a year ago

@mata I meant it was removed from codecs available in string. bytes objects don't have encode.

Sean Francis N. Ballais Over a year ago

@warvariuc, that would do then. Then again, both will still produce the same output anyways. Are there any performance differences between str.encode() and bytes()?

warvariuc Over a year ago

@SeanFrancisN.Ballais Don't estimate, measure! :)

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Anuj Masand · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-23 10:07:51Z

5

Code as follows:

base64.urlsafe_b64encode('Some String'.encode('UTF-8')).decode('ascii')

For example: return {'raw': base64.urlsafe_b64encode(message.as_string().encode('UTF-8')).decode('ascii')}

Worked for me.

answered Nov 23, 2018 at 10:07

Anuj Masand

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