A Simple Guide to Python Base64 Encode String for Beginners – Python Tutorial

In this tutorial, we will introduce how to use base64 model to encode and decode a python string, there are some tips you shoud notice and you can learn how to use base64 library by following our tutorial.

Base64 basic encode and decode function

base64.b64encode(s, altchars=None)
base64.b64decode(s, altchars=None, validate=False)

You shoud notice these two function input is bytes-like object, the return is byte.

So to encode a string you shoud:

1.Convert string to byte object

2.Use base64.b64encode() to encode byte object

3.Convert byte object to string

Then we create a function to encode a python string with base64.

Import library

import base64

Encode python string

def base64_encode(str):
    byte_str = str.encode()
    base64_str= base64.b64encode(byte_str)
    base64_str = base64_str.decode()
    return base64_str

As to encode, we also can create a function to decode it.

Decode base64 string

def base64_decode(base64_str):
    byte_str = base64_str.encode()
    str = base64.b64decode(byte_str)
    str = str.decode()
    return str

How to use?

s = 'https://www.tutorialexample.com/'    
base64_str = base64_encode(s)
print(base64_str)

str = base64_decode(base64_str)
print(str)

The output is:

aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudHV0b3JpYWxleGFtcGxlLmNvbS8=
https://www.tutorialexample.com/