Remove trailing “=” when base64 encoding

Question

I am noticing that whenever I base64 encode a string, a \"=\" is appended at the end. Can I remove this character and then reliably decode it later by adding it back, or is

Answer 1

Using Python you can remove base64 padding and add it back like this:

from math import ceil

stripped = original.rstrip('=')

original = stripped.ljust(ceil(len(stripped) / 4) * 4, '=')