How do I base64 encode (decode) in C?

Question

I have binary data in an unsigned char variable. I need to convert them to PEM base64 in c. I looked in openssl library but i could not find any function. Does any body have

Answer 1

In case people need a c++ solution, I put this OpenSSL solution together (for both encode and decode). You'll need to link with the "crypto" library (which is OpenSSL). This has been checked for leaks with valgrind (although you could add some additional error checking code to make it a bit better - I know at least the write function should check for return value).

#include 
#include 
#include 

string base64_encode( const string &str ){

    BIO *base64_filter = BIO_new( BIO_f_base64() );
    BIO_set_flags( base64_filter, BIO_FLAGS_BASE64_NO_NL );

    BIO *bio = BIO_new( BIO_s_mem() );
    BIO_set_flags( bio, BIO_FLAGS_BASE64_NO_NL );

    bio = BIO_push( base64_filter, bio );

    BIO_write( bio, str.c_str(), str.length() );

    BIO_flush( bio );

    char *new_data;

    long bytes_written = BIO_get_mem_data( bio, &new_data );

    string result( new_data, bytes_written );
    BIO_free_all( bio );

    return result;

}



string base64_decode( const string &str ){

    BIO *bio, *base64_filter, *bio_out;
    char inbuf[512];
    int inlen;
    base64_filter = BIO_new( BIO_f_base64() );
    BIO_set_flags( base64_filter, BIO_FLAGS_BASE64_NO_NL );

    bio = BIO_new_mem_buf( (void*)str.c_str(), str.length() );

    bio = BIO_push( base64_filter, bio );

    bio_out = BIO_new( BIO_s_mem() );

    while( (inlen = BIO_read(bio, inbuf, 512)) > 0 ){
        BIO_write( bio_out, inbuf, inlen );
    }

    BIO_flush( bio_out );

    char *new_data;
    long bytes_written = BIO_get_mem_data( bio_out, &new_data );

    string result( new_data, bytes_written );

    BIO_free_all( bio );
    BIO_free_all( bio_out );

    return result;

}