On 6/14/2016 12:32 PM, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
The input to encoding would have to remain bytes (that's the main
purpose of base64... to turn bytes into an ascii string).
The purpose is to turn arbitrary binary data (commonly images) into
'safe bytes' that will not get mangled on transmission (7 bit channels
were once common) and that will not mangle a display of data transmitted
or received. Ignoring the EBCDIC world, which Python mostly does, the
set of 'safe bytes' is the set that encodes printable ascii characters.
Those bytes pass through 7 bit channels and display on ascii-based
terminals.
--
Terry Jan Reedy
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