!!! Overview
[{$pagename}] [encoding] is a way of [Data representation] [binary] [data] in a text-only form. 


[{$pagename}] originates from a specific [MIME] content transfer [encoding]. Each [{$pagename}] [digit] represents exactly 6 [bits] of [data]. Three 8-bit [bytes] (i.e., a total of 24 [bits]) can therefore be represented by four 6-bit [{$pagename}] [digits].


[{$pagename}] is commonly used in [LDIF] for values containing non-[ASCII] characters, or for values that could otherwise be ambiguous (e.g., values that begin or end with spaces).  

[{$pagename}] is also frequently used to encode [certificate] contents or the output of message digests like [MD5] or [SHA].  

The [{$pagename}] [encoding] is described in [RFC 4648].

The basic principle of [{$pagename}] [encoding] is that it defines a 64-byte alphabet containing the following characters in the given order:
{{{
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/
}}}

Each of those characters is assigned a numeric value between 0 and 63 based on its position in the list (i.e., "{{A}}" is 0, "{{B}}" is 1, "{{C}}" is 2, ... "{{+}}" is 62, and "{{/}}" is 63).  A value is broken up into six-bit segments, and each of those six bits is converted into a numeric value between 0 and 63 and replaced with the specified character from the alphabet given above.  This means that every three bytes of a binary value is converted into four characters from the [{$pagename}] alphabet.  If the length of the binary value is not a multiple of three bytes, then it is zero-[padded] and either one or two equal signs are appended to the [{$pagename}]-encoded value.

%%warning
[{$pagename}] is an [Encoding] and is not a [hash] nor is it a form of [Encryption]
%%


!! More Information
There might be more information for this subject on one of the following:
[{ReferringPagesPlugin before='*' after='\n' }]