How to parse into base64 string the binary image from response?

Question

I want to parse the requested image from my REST API into base64 string.

Answer 1

I think part of the problem you're hitting is that jQuery.ajax does not natively support XHR2 blob/arraybuffer types which can nicely handle binary data (see Reading binary files using jQuery.ajax).

If you use a native XHR object with xhr.responseType = 'arraybuffer', then read the response array and convert it to Base64, you'll get what you want.

Here's a solution that works for me:

// http://www.henryalgus.com/reading-binary-files-using-jquery-ajax/
function fetchBlob(uri, callback) {
  var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
  xhr.open('GET', uri, true);
  xhr.responseType = 'arraybuffer';

  xhr.onload = function(e) {
    if (this.status == 200) {
      var blob = this.response;
      if (callback) {
        callback(blob);
      }
    }
  };
  xhr.send();
};

fetchBlob('https://i.imgur.com/uUGeiSFb.jpg', function(blob) {
  // Array buffer to Base64:
  var str = btoa(String.fromCharCode.apply(null, new Uint8Array(blob)));

  console.log(str);
  // Or: ''
});

https://jsfiddle.net/oy1pk8r3/2/

Produces base64 encoded console output: /9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEASABIAAD/2wBDAAIBAQIBAQICAgICAgICAw.....