Binary-to-text encoding: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 08:17, 13 August 2024

Latest revision as of 03:33, 10 August 2025

(9 intermediate revisions by 9 users not shown)

Line 5:

}}

{{anchor|ASCII armor}} A '''binary-to-text encoding''' is [[code|encoding]] of [[data (computing)|data]] in [[plain text]]. More precisely, it is an encoding of binary data in a sequence of [[character (computing)|printable characters]]. These encodings are necessary for transmission of data when the [[communication channel]] does not allow binary data (such as [[email]] or [[NNTP]]) or is not [[8-bit clean]]. [[Pretty Good Privacy|PGP]] documentation ({{IETF RFC|48809580}}) uses the term "'''ASCII armor'''" for binary-to-text encoding when referring to [[Base64]].

==Overview==

Line 34:

| [[Ascii85]] || Arbitrary || 80% || [http://sites.google.com/site/dannychouinard/Home/unix-linux-trinkets/little-utilities/base64-and-base85-encoding-awk-scripts awk] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141229031706/http://sites.google.com/site/dannychouinard/Home/unix-linux-trinkets/little-utilities/base64-and-base85-encoding-awk-scripts |date=2014-12-29 }}, [http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/packages/ccic/software/unix/utils/btoa.c C], [https://github.com/woolstar/test/blob/master/encode/asc85.c C (2)], [https://web.archive.org/web/20131227071331/http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2005/10/c-implementation-of-ascii85.html C#], [https://web.archive.org/web/20210927102719/http://blog.wezeku.com/2010/07/01/f-ascii85-module/ F#], [https://pkg.go.dev/encoding/ascii85 Go], [https://web.archive.org/web/20160304035222/http://java.freehep.org/freehep-io/apidocs/org/freehep/util/io/ASCII85.html Java] [https://metacpan.org/pod/Convert::Ascii85 Perl], [https://docs.python.org/3/library/base64.html#base64.a85encode Python], [https://web.archive.org/web/20151208205520/https://code.google.com/p/python-mom/source/browse/mom/codec/base85.py Python (2)]|| There exist several variants of this encoding, [[Base85]], [[btoa]], etc.

|-

| [[Base32]] || Arbitrary || 62.5% || [httphttps://sourceforge.net/projects/cyoencode/ ANSI C], [https://github.com/MHumm/DelphiEncryptionCompendium/blob/master/Source/DECFormat.pas Delphi], [https://pkg.go.dev/encoding/base32 Go], [http://commons.apache.org/codec/ Java], [https://github.com/zanaptak/BinaryToTextEncoding C# F#], [https://docs.python.org/dev/library/base64.html#base64.b32encode Python] || {{space}}

|-

| [[Base36]] || Integer || data-sort-value="64%"|~64% || bash, [[C (programming language)|C]], [[C++]], [[C Sharp (programming language)|C#]], [[Java (programming language)|Java]], [[Perl]], [[PHP]], [[Python (programming language)|Python]], Visual Basic, [[Swift (programming language)|Swift]], many others

Line 41:

| Base45 || Arbitrary || ~67% (97%{{efn|Encoding for QR code generation automatically selects the encoding to match the input character set, encoding 2 alphanumeric characters in 11 bits, and Base45 encodes 16 bits into 3 such characters. The efficiency is thus 32 bits of binary data encoded in 33 bits: 97%.}}) || [https://github.com/Dasio/base45/ Go], [https://pypi.org/project/base45/ Python] || Defined in IETF Specification RFC 9285 for including binary data compactly in a [[QR code]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9285|title = The Base45 Data Encoding|date = 2022-08-11|last1 = Fältström|first1 = Patrik|last2 = Ljunggren|first2 = Freik|last3 = Gulik|first3 = Dirk-Willem van|quote=Even in Byte mode, a typical QR code reader tries to interpret a byte sequence as text encoded in UTF-8 or ISO/IEC 8859-1. ... Such data has to be converted into an appropriate text before that text could be encoded as a QR code. ... Base45 ... offers a more compact QR code encoding.}}</ref>

|-

| Base56 || Integer || — || [http://rossduggan.ie/blog/codetry/base-56-integer-encoding-in-php/index.html PHP], [https://github.com/jyn514foss-fund/base56 Python], [https://pkg.go.dev/toolman.org/encoding/base56 Go] || A variant of Base58 encoding which further sheds the '1' and the lowercase 'o' characters in order to minimise the risk of fraud and human-error.<ref>{{cite web |last=Duggan |first=Ross |date=August 18, 2009 |title=Base-56 Integer Encoding in PHP |url=http://rossduggan.ie/blog/codetry/base-56-integer-encoding-in-php/index.html}}</ref>

|-

| {{anchor|Base58}}Base58 || Integer || data-sort-value="73%"|~73% || [https://github.com/bitcoin/libbase58 C], [https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/base58.h C++], [https://pypi.python.org/pypi/base58 Python], [https://github.com/medo64/Medo/blob/main/src/Medo/Convert/Base58.cs C#], [https://github.com/NovaCrypto/Base58 Java] || Similar to Base64, but modified to avoid both non-alphanumeric characters (+ and /) and letters that might look ambiguous when printed (0{{snd}} zero, I{{snd}} capital i, O{{snd}} capital o and l{{snd}} lower-case L). Base58 is used to represent [[bitcoin]] addresses.{{cn|date=April 2023}} Some messaging and social media systems [[Line wrap and word wrap|break lines]] on non-alphanumeric strings. This is avoided by not using [[Percent-encoding#Reserved characters|URI reserved characters]] such as +. For [[SegWit]], it was replaced by Bech32, see below.

Line 48:

| [[Base62]] || Arbitrary || ~74% || [https://github.com/fbernier/base62 Rust], [https://pypi.org/project/pybase62/ Python]|| Similar to Base64, but contains only alphanumeric characters.

|-

| [[Base64]] || Arbitrary || 75% || [http://sites.google.com/site/dannychouinard/Home/unix-linux-trinkets/little-utilities/base64-and-base85-encoding-awk-scripts awk] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141229031706/http://sites.google.com/site/dannychouinard/Home/unix-linux-trinkets/little-utilities/base64-and-base85-encoding-awk-scripts |date=2014-12-29 }}, [httphttps://base64.sourceforge.net/ C], [http://www.fpx.de/fp/Software/UUDeview/ C (2)], [https://github.com/MHumm/DelphiEncryptionCompendium/blob/master/Source/DECFormat.pas Delphi], [https://pkg.go.dev/encoding/base64 Go], [https://docs.python.org/3/library/base64.html#base64.b64encode Python], many others || An early and still-popular encoding, first specified as part of {{IETF RFC|989}} in 1987

|-

| [[Base85]] || Arbitrary || 80% ||[https://github.com/woolstar/test/blob/master/encode/base85.c C], [https://docs.python.org/3/library/base64.html#base64.b85encode Python], [https://code.google.com/p/python-mom/source/browse/mom/codec/base85.py Python (2)]

Line 71:

| [[Hexadecimal#Base16 (transfer encoding)|Hexadecimal]] (Base16) || Arbitrary || 50% || Most languages || Exists in [[uppercase]] and [[Letter case#All lowercase|lowercase]] variants

|-

| [[Intel HEX]] || Arbitrary || data-sort-value="50%"|≲50% || [https://github.com/vsergeev/libGIS C library], [httphttps://srecord.sourceforge.net/ C++] || Typically used to program [[EPROM]], [[Flash memory|NOR flash]] memory chips

|-

| [[MIME]] || Arbitrary || See [[Quoted-printable]] and [[Base64]] || See [[Quoted-printable]] and [[Base64]] || Encoding container for e-mail-like formatting

Line 79:

| [[Quoted-printable]] || Text || data-sort-value="33%"|~33–100%{{efn|1= One byte stored as =XX. Encoding all but the 94 characters which don't need it (incl. space and tab).}} || Probably many || Preserves line breaks; cuts lines at 76 characters

|-

| [[S-record]] (Motorola hex) || Arbitrary || 49.6% || [https://github.com/vsergeev/libGIS C library], [httphttps://srecord.sourceforge.net/ C++] || Typically used to program [[EPROM]], [[Flash memory|NOR flash]] memory chips. 49.6% assumes 255 binary bytes per record.

|-

| [[Tektronix hex]] || Arbitrary || || || Typically used to program [[EPROM]], [[Flash memory|NOR flash]] memory chips.

|-

| TxMS || Hexadecimal || ~32% || [https://github.com/bchainhub/txms.js#readme Node.js (and CLI)TxMS] || Used to transmit [[Blockchain]] transactions via [[SMS]] using [[UTF-16BE]].

|Arbitrary

|

|[https://github.com/bchainhub/txms.js TypeScript, CLI], [https://github.com/bchainhub/flutter_txms Dart]

|TxMS compresses binary data into a readable text format using Binary-to-Text encoding and allows reversible conversion back to hexadecimal.

|-

| [[Uuencoding]] || Arbitrary || data-sort-value="60%"|~60% ([[Uuencoding#Disadvantages|up to 70%]]) || [[Uuencoding#Perl|Perl]], [http://www.fpx.de/fp/Software/UUDeview/ C], [https://github.com/MHumm/DelphiEncryptionCompendium/blob/master/Source/DECFormat.pas Delphi], [https://github.com/frohoff/jdk8u-dev-jdk/blob/master/src/share/classes/sun/misc/UUEncoder.java Java], [https://docs.python.org/3/library/uu.html Python], probably many others || An early encoding developed in 1980 for [[Unix-to-Unix Copy]]. Largely replaced by MIME and [[yEnc]]