Base64 encoding and decoding with OpenSSL

I've been trying to figure out the openssl documentation for base64 decoding and encoding. I found some code snippets below

#include <openssl/sha.h>
#include <openssl/hmac.h>
#include <openssl/evp.h>
#include <openssl/bio.h>
#include <openssl/buffer.h>

char *base64(const unsigned char *input, int length)
{
  BIO *bmem, *b64;
  BUF_MEM *bptr;

  b64 = BIO_new(BIO_f_base64());
  bmem = BIO_new(BIO_s_mem());
  b64 = BIO_push(b64, bmem);
  BIO_write(b64, input, length);
  BIO_flush(b64);
  BIO_get_mem_ptr(b64, &bptr);

  char *buff = (char *)malloc(bptr->length);
  memcpy(buff, bptr->data, bptr->length-1);
  buff[bptr->length-1] = 0;

  BIO_free_all(b64);

  return buff;
}

char *decode64(unsigned char *input, int length)
{
  BIO *b64, *bmem;

  char *buffer = (char *)malloc(length);
  memset(buffer, 0, length);

  b64 = BIO_new(BIO_f_base64());
  bmem = BIO_new_mem_buf(input, length);
  bmem = BIO_push(b64, bmem);

  BIO_read(bmem, buffer, length);

  BIO_free_all(bmem);

  return buffer;
}

This only seems to work for single line strings such as "Start", the moment I introduce complex strings with newlines and spaces etc it fails horribly.

It doesn't even have to be openssl, a simple class or set of functions that do the same thing would be fine, theres a very complicated build process for the solution and I am trying to avoid having to go in there and make multiple changes. The only reason I went for openssl is because the solution is already compiled with the libraries.

c++ openssl base64

Edit Report

Here is an example of OpenSSL base64 encode/decode I wrote:

Notice, I have some macros/classes in the code that I wrote, but none of them is important for the example. It is simply some C++ wrappers I wrote:

buffer base64::encode( const buffer& data )
{
    // bio is simply a class that wraps BIO* and it free the BIO in the destructor.

    bio b64(BIO_f_base64()); // create BIO to perform base64
    BIO_set_flags(b64,BIO_FLAGS_BASE64_NO_NL);

    bio mem(BIO_s_mem()); // create BIO that holds the result

    // chain base64 with mem, so writing to b64 will encode base64 and write to mem.
    BIO_push(b64, mem);

    // write data
    bool done = false;
    int res = 0;
    while(!done)
    {
        res = BIO_write(b64, data.data, (int)data.size);

        if(res <= 0) // if failed
        {
            if(BIO_should_retry(b64)){
                continue;
            }
            else // encoding failed
            {
                /* Handle Error!!! */
            }
        }
        else // success!
            done = true;
    }

    BIO_flush(b64);

    // get a pointer to mem's data
    char* dt;
    long len = BIO_get_mem_data(mem, &dt);

    // assign data to output
    std::string s(dt, len);

    return buffer(s.length()+sizeof(char), (byte*)s.c_str());
}

answered 2011-03-16T20:20:52.117

Base64 encoding and decoding with OpenSSL

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