Detect base64 encoding in PHP?

Question

Is there some way to detect if a string has been base64_encoded() in PHP?

We\'re converting some storage from plain text to base64 and part of it lives in a cookie

Answer 1

Better late than never: You could maybe use mb_detect_encoding() to find out whether the encoded string appears to have been some kind of text:

function is_base64_string($s) {
  // first check if we're dealing with an actual valid base64 encoded string
  if (($b = base64_decode($s, TRUE)) === FALSE) {
    return FALSE;
  }

  // now check whether the decoded data could be actual text
  $e = mb_detect_encoding($b);
  if (in_array($e, array('UTF-8', 'ASCII'))) { // YMMV
    return TRUE;
  } else {
    return FALSE;
  }
}