Getting started

pybase64 is a wrapper on libbase64.

It aims to provide a fast base64 implementation for base64 encoding/decoding.

Installation

pip install pybase64

Usage

pybase64 uses the same API as Python base64 “modern interface” (introduced in Python 2.4) for an easy integration.

To get the fastest decoding, it is recommended to use the b64decode() and validate=True when possible.

import pybase64

print(pybase64.b64encode(b'>>>foo???', altchars='_:'))
# b'Pj4_Zm9vPz8:'
print(pybase64.b64decode(b'Pj4_Zm9vPz8:', altchars='_:', validate=True))
# b'>>>foo???'

# Standard encoding helpers
print(pybase64.standard_b64encode(b'>>>foo???'))
# b'Pj4+Zm9vPz8/'
print(pybase64.standard_b64decode(b'Pj4+Zm9vPz8/'))
# b'>>>foo???'

# URL safe encoding helpers
print(pybase64.urlsafe_b64encode(b'>>>foo???'))
# b'Pj4-Zm9vPz8_'
print(pybase64.urlsafe_b64decode(b'Pj4-Zm9vPz8_'))
# b'>>>foo???'

Check API Reference for more details.

A command-line tool is also provided. It has encode, decode and benchmark subcommands.

usage: pybase64 [-h] [-V] {benchmark,encode,decode} ...

pybase64 command-line tool.

positional arguments:
  {benchmark,encode,decode}
                        tool help
    benchmark           -h for usage
    encode              -h for usage
    decode              -h for usage

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -V, --version         show program's version number and exit

Benchmark

Running Python 3.7.2, Apple LLVM version 10.0.0 (clang-1000.11.45.5), Mac OS X 10.14.2 on an Intel Core i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz

pybase64 0.5.0 (C extension active - AVX2)
bench: altchars=None, validate=False
pybase64._pybase64.encodebytes:   1734.776 MB/s (13,271,472 bytes -> 17,928,129 bytes)
pybase64._pybase64.b64encode:     4039.539 MB/s (13,271,472 bytes -> 17,695,296 bytes)
pybase64._pybase64.b64decode:     1854.423 MB/s (17,695,296 bytes -> 13,271,472 bytes)
base64.encodebytes:                 78.352 MB/s (13,271,472 bytes -> 17,928,129 bytes)
base64.b64encode:                  539.840 MB/s (13,271,472 bytes -> 17,695,296 bytes)
base64.b64decode:                  287.826 MB/s (17,695,296 bytes -> 13,271,472 bytes)
bench: altchars=None, validate=True
pybase64._pybase64.b64encode:     4156.607 MB/s (13,271,472 bytes -> 17,695,296 bytes)
pybase64._pybase64.b64decode:     4107.997 MB/s (17,695,296 bytes -> 13,271,472 bytes)
base64.b64encode:                  559.342 MB/s (13,271,472 bytes -> 17,695,296 bytes)
base64.b64decode:                  143.674 MB/s (17,695,296 bytes -> 13,271,472 bytes)
bench: altchars=b'-_', validate=False
pybase64._pybase64.b64encode:     2786.776 MB/s (13,271,472 bytes -> 17,695,296 bytes)
pybase64._pybase64.b64decode:     1124.136 MB/s (17,695,296 bytes -> 13,271,472 bytes)
base64.b64encode:                  322.427 MB/s (13,271,472 bytes -> 17,695,296 bytes)
base64.b64decode:                  205.195 MB/s (17,695,296 bytes -> 13,271,472 bytes)
bench: altchars=b'-_', validate=True
pybase64._pybase64.b64encode:     2806.271 MB/s (13,271,472 bytes -> 17,695,296 bytes)
pybase64._pybase64.b64decode:     2740.456 MB/s (17,695,296 bytes -> 13,271,472 bytes)
base64.b64encode:                  314.709 MB/s (13,271,472 bytes -> 17,695,296 bytes)
base64.b64decode:                  121.803 MB/s (17,695,296 bytes -> 13,271,472 bytes)