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Diffstat (limited to 'Doc/library/base64.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Doc/library/base64.rst | 42 |
1 files changed, 22 insertions, 20 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/library/base64.rst b/Doc/library/base64.rst index 0802e6c..c10a74a 100644 --- a/Doc/library/base64.rst +++ b/Doc/library/base64.rst @@ -10,21 +10,23 @@ single: MIME; base64 encoding This module provides data encoding and decoding as specified in :rfc:`3548`. -This standard defines the Base16, Base32, and Base64 algorithms for encoding and -decoding arbitrary binary strings into text strings that can be safely sent by -email, used as parts of URLs, or included as part of an HTTP POST request. The -encoding algorithm is not the same as the :program:`uuencode` program. - -There are two interfaces provided by this module. The modern interface supports -encoding and decoding string objects using all three alphabets. The legacy -interface provides for encoding and decoding to and from file-like objects as -well as strings, but only using the Base64 standard alphabet. +This standard defines the Base16, Base32, and Base64 algorithms for encoding +and decoding arbitrary binary strings into ASCII-only byte strings that can be +safely sent by email, used as parts of URLs, or included as part of an HTTP +POST request. The encoding algorithm is not the same as the +:program:`uuencode` program. + +There are two interfaces provided by this module. The modern interface +supports encoding and decoding ASCII byte string objects using all three +alphabets. The legacy interface provides for encoding and decoding to and from +file-like objects as well as byte strings, but only using the Base64 standard +alphabet. The modern interface provides: .. function:: b64encode(s, altchars=None) - Encode a byte string use Base64. + Encode a byte string using Base64. *s* is the string to encode. Optional *altchars* must be a string of at least length 2 (additional characters are ignored) which specifies an alternative @@ -39,9 +41,9 @@ The modern interface provides: Decode a Base64 encoded byte string. - *s* is the string to decode. Optional *altchars* must be a string of at least - length 2 (additional characters are ignored) which specifies the alternative - alphabet used instead of the ``+`` and ``/`` characters. + *s* is the byte string to decode. Optional *altchars* must be a string of + at least length 2 (additional characters are ignored) which specifies the + alternative alphabet used instead of the ``+`` and ``/`` characters. The decoded byte string is returned. A :exc:`TypeError` is raised if *s* were incorrectly padded or if there are non-alphabet characters present in the @@ -81,9 +83,9 @@ The modern interface provides: Decode a Base32 encoded byte string. - *s* is the string to decode. Optional *casefold* is a flag specifying whether a - lowercase alphabet is acceptable as input. For security purposes, the default - is ``False``. + *s* is the byte string to decode. Optional *casefold* is a flag specifying + whether a lowercase alphabet is acceptable as input. For security purposes, + the default is ``False``. :rfc:`3548` allows for optional mapping of the digit 0 (zero) to the letter O (oh), and for optional mapping of the digit 1 (one) to either the letter I (eye) @@ -130,8 +132,8 @@ The legacy interface: .. function:: decodebytes(s) decodestring(s) - Decode the bytestring *s*, which must contain one or more lines of base64 - encoded data, and return a bytestring containing the resulting binary data. + Decode the byte string *s*, which must contain one or more lines of base64 + encoded data, and return a byte string containing the resulting binary data. ``decodestring`` is a deprecated alias. @@ -147,8 +149,8 @@ The legacy interface: .. function:: encodebytes(s) encodestring(s) - Encode the bytestring *s*, which can contain arbitrary binary data, and - return a bytestring containing one or more lines of base64-encoded data. + Encode the byte string *s*, which can contain arbitrary binary data, and + return a byte string containing one or more lines of base64-encoded data. :func:`encodebytes` returns a string containing one or more lines of base64-encoded data always including an extra trailing newline (``b'\n'``). ``encodestring`` is a deprecated alias. |