Converting File into Base64String and Back Again

Converting file into Base64String and back again

If you want for some reason to convert your file to base-64 string. Like if you want to pass it via internet, etc... you can do this

Byte[] bytes = File.ReadAllBytes("path");
String file = Convert.ToBase64String(bytes);

And correspondingly, read back to file:

Byte[] bytes = Convert.FromBase64String(b64Str);
File.WriteAllBytes(path, bytes);

Convert a VERY LARGE binary file into a Base64String incrementally

Based on the code shown in the blog from Wiktor Zychla the following code works. This same solution is indicated in the remarks section of Convert.ToBase64String as pointed out by Ivan Stoev

// using  System.Security.Cryptography

private void ConvertLargeFile()
{
    //encode 
    var filein= @"C:\Users\test\Desktop\my.zip";
    var fileout = @"C:\Users\test\Desktop\Base64Zip";
    using (FileStream fs = File.Open(fileout, FileMode.Create))
        using (var cs=new CryptoStream(fs, new ToBase64Transform(),
                                                     CryptoStreamMode.Write))

           using(var fi =File.Open(filein, FileMode.Open))
           {
               fi.CopyTo(cs);
           }
     // the zip file is now stored in base64zip    
     // and decode
     using (FileStream f64 = File.Open(fileout, FileMode.Open) )
         using (var cs=new CryptoStream(f64, new FromBase64Transform(),
                                                     CryptoStreamMode.Read ) ) 
           using(var fo =File.Open(filein +".orig", FileMode.Create))
           {
               cs.CopyTo(fo);
           }     
     // the original file is in my.zip.orig
     // use the commandlinetool 
     //  fc my.zip my.zip.orig 
     // to verify that the start file and the encoded and decoded file 
     // are the same
}

The code uses standard classes found in System.Security.Cryptography namespace and uses a CryptoStream and the FromBase64Transform and its counterpart ToBase64Transform

How to convert file to base64 in JavaScript?

Modern ES6 way (async/await)

const toBase64 = file => new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    const reader = new FileReader();
    reader.readAsDataURL(file);
    reader.onload = () => resolve(reader.result);
    reader.onerror = error => reject(error);
});

async function Main() {
   const file = document.querySelector('#myfile').files[0];
   console.log(await toBase64(file));
}

Main();

UPD:

If you want to catch errors

async function Main() {
   const file = document.querySelector('#myfile').files[0];
   try {
      const result = await toBase64(file);
      return result
   } catch(error) {
      console.error(error);
      return;
   }
   //...
}

Encode a FileStream to base64 with c#

You can also encode bytes to Base64. How to get this from a stream see here: How to convert an Stream into a byte[] in C#?

Or I think it should be also possible to use the .ToString() method and encode this.

Should i convert a file to Base64 before or after sending it to the backend?

This is from this post... Storing image in database directly or as base64 data?

I contend that images (files) are NOT usually stored in a database base64 encoded. Instead, they are stored in their raw binary form in a binary (blob) column (or file).

Base64 is only used as a transport mechanism, not for storage. For example, you can embed a base64 encoded image into an XML document or an email message.

Base64 is also stream friendly. You can encode and decode on the fly (without knowing the total size of the data).

While base64 is fine for transport, do not store your images base64 encoded.

Base64 provides no checksum or anything of any value for storage.

Base64 encoding increases the storage requirement by 33% over a raw binary format. It also increases the amount of data that must be read from persistent storage, which is still generally the largest bottleneck in computing. It's generally faster to read fewer bytes and encode them on the fly. Only if your system is CPU bound instead of IO bound, and you're regularly outputting the image in base64, then consider storing in base64.

Inline images (base64 encoded images embedded in HTML) are a bottleneck themselves--you're sending 33% more data over the wire, and doing it serially (the web browser has to wait on the inline images before it can finish downloading the page HTML).

If you still wish to store images base64 encoded, please, whatever you do, make sure you don't store base64 encoded data in a UTF8 column then index it.

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