Encoding/Decoding Base64 with Node.js Core Buffer API

#node #base64 #auth

The Node.js core Buffer API allows base64 encoding for cases like Basic authentication.

The legacy version with Node.js is by using the buf.atob() and buf.btoa() methods, and according to their documentation should not be used in new code.

So here's the recommended way...

Encoding a string to base64

const user = 'colbyhemond'
const password = 'test123!@#'
const stringBuffer = Buffer.from(`${user}:${password}`)
const stringBase64 = stringBuffer.toString('base64')

console.log(stringBase64)
// will output: "Y29sYnloZW1vbmQ6dGVzdDEyMyFAIw=="

Decoding from base64 to a unicode string

const base64String = 'Y29sYnloZW1vbmQ6dGVzdDEyMyFAIw=='
const base64Buffer = Buffer.from(base64String, 'base64')
const string =  base64Buffer.toString()

console.log(string)
// will output: "colbyhemond:test123!@#"