What is base64 encoding used for?

Question

I\'ve heard people talking about \"base 64 encoding\" here and there. What is it used for?

Answer 1

I use it in a practical sense when we transfer large binary objects (images) via web services. So when I am testing a C# web service using a python script, the binary object can be recreated with a little magic.

[In python]

import base64
imageAsBytes = base64.b64decode( dataFromWS )