Title:	Fast and Vectorized Base 64 Engine
Version:	0.1.7
Description:	Provides a fast, lightweight, and vectorized base 64 engine to encode and decode character and raw vectors as well as files stored on disk. Common base 64 alphabets are supported out of the box including the standard, URL-safe, bcrypt, crypt, 'BinHex', and IMAP-modified UTF-7 alphabets. Custom engines can be created to support unique base 64 encoding and decoding needs.
License:	MIT + file LICENSE
Encoding:	UTF-8
Language:	en
RoxygenNote:	7.3.2
Config/rextendr/version:	0.4.0.9000
SystemRequirements:	Cargo (Rust's package manager), rustc, xz
Suggests:	blob, testthat (≥ 3.0.0)
Config/testthat/edition:	3
URL:	https://extendr.github.io/b64/, https://github.com/extendr/b64
BugReports:	https://github.com/extendr/b64/issues
Depends:	R (≥ 4.2)
NeedsCompilation:	yes
Packaged:	2025-07-14 16:06:04 UTC; josiahparry
Author:	Josiah Parry [aut, cre], Etienne Bacher [ctb]
Maintainer:	Josiah Parry <josiah.parry@gmail.com>
Repository:	CRAN
Date/Publication:	2025-07-14 16:30:06 UTC

b64: Fast and Vectorized Base 64 Engine

Description

Provides a fast, lightweight, and vectorized base 64 engine to encode and decode character and raw vectors as well as files stored on disk. Common base 64 alphabets are supported out of the box including the standard, URL-safe, bcrypt, crypt, 'BinHex', and IMAP-modified UTF-7 alphabets. Custom engines can be created to support unique base 64 encoding and decoding needs.

Author(s)

Maintainer: Josiah Parry josiah.parry@gmail.com (ORCID)

Other contributors:

• Etienne Bacher etienne.bacher@protonmail.com (ORCID) [contributor]

See Also

Useful links:

• https://extendr.github.io/b64/

• https://github.com/extendr/b64

• Report bugs at https://github.com/extendr/b64/issues

Standard base64 alphabets

Description

Create an alphabet from a set of standard base64 alphabets, or use your own.

Usage

alphabet(which = "standard")

new_alphabet(chars)

Arguments

Details

• "bcrypt": bcrypt alphabet

• "bin_hex": alphabet used in BinHex 4.0 files

• "crypt": crypt(3) alphabet (with . and / as the first two characters)

• "imap_mutf7": alphabet used in IMAP-modified UTF-7 (with + and ,)

• "standard": standard alphabet (with + and /) specified in RFC 4648

• "url_safe": URL-safe alphabet (with - and _) specified in RFC 4648

See base64 crate from where these definitions come.

Value

an object of class alphabet

Examples

alphabet("standard")
alphabet("bcrypt")
alphabet("bin_hex")
alphabet("crypt")
alphabet("imap_mutf7")
alphabet("url_safe")

new_alphabet("qwertyuiop[]asdfghjklzxcvbnmQWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM1234567890")

Utility Functions

Description

Functions to perform common tasks when working with base64 encoded strings.

Usage

b64_chunk(encoded, width)

b64_wrap(chunks, newline)

Arguments

Details

b64_chunk() splits a character vector of base64 encoded strings into chunks of a specified width.

b64_wrap() wraps a character vector of base64 encoded strings with a newline character.

Value

• b64_chunk() returns a list of character vectors.

• b64_wrap() returns a scalar character vector.

Examples

encoded <- encode("Hello, world!")
chunked <- b64_chunk(encoded, 4)
chunked

b64_wrap(chunked, "\n")

Encode and decode using base64

Description

Encode and decode using base64

Usage

encode(what, eng = engine())

decode(what, eng = engine())

decode_as_string(what, newline = "\n", eng = engine())

encode_file(path, eng = engine())

decode_file(path, eng = engine())

Arguments

Details

Encoding

• encode() takes a character vector, list of raw vectors (or blob class), or a raw vector and encodes them into base64 strings.

• encode_file() takes a path to a file and encodes it as a base64 string.

Decoding

• decode() will decode either a base64 encoded character scalar, a raw vector, or a list of raw vectors (see blob package).

• decode_file() will decode a base64 encoded file into a raw vector.

• decode_as_string() is designed to decode a base64 encoded string to a utf-8 string. By default, it will decode a chunked base64 encoded strings using ⁠\n⁠ as the separator. Use the newline argument to determine how to split the input string prior to decoding.

Value

Both encode() and decode() are vectorized. They will return a character and blob vector the same length as what, respectively.

decode_as_string() returns a character scalar.

Examples

# encode hello world
encoded <- encode("Hello world")
encoded

# decode to a blob
decoded <- decode(encoded)
decoded

# convert back to a character
rawToChar(decoded[[1]])

Create an encoding engine

Description

Create an encoding engine

Usage

engine(which = "standard")

new_engine(.alphabet = alphabet(), .config = new_config())

Arguments

Details

Engines

By default, the "standard" base64 engine is used which is specified in RFC 4648.

Additional pre-configured base64 engines are provided these are:

• "standard_no_pad": uses the standard engine without padding

• "url_safe": uses a url-safe alphabet with padding

• "url_safe_no_pad": uses a url-safe alphabet without padding

See base64 crate for more.

Value

an object of class engine.

Examples

engine()
new_engine(alphabet("bcrypt"), new_config())

Create a custom encoding engine

Description

Create a custom encoding engine

Usage

new_config(
  encode_padding = TRUE,
  decode_padding_trailing_bits = FALSE,
  decode_padding_mode = c("canonical", "indifferent", "none")
)

Arguments

Details

See base64 crate for more details.

Decode Padding Modes

There are three modes that can be used for decode_padding_mode argument.

• "canonical": padding must consist of 0, 1, or 2 = characters

• "none": there must be no padding characters present

• "indifferent": canonical padding is used, but omitted padding characters are also permitted

Value

an object of class engine_config

Examples

# create a new nonsensicle config
new_config(FALSE, TRUE, "none")