Decode Base64 data in Java

Question

I have an image that is Base64 encoded. What is the best way to decode that in Java? Hopefully using only the libraries included with Sun Java 6.

Answer 1

In Java v6, Java SE ships with JAXB.  You can use javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter which has static methods that make this simple. Check out parseBase64Binary() and printBase64Binary().

Here's a sample code:

import java.util.Base64;

byte[] bytes = "Hello, World!".getBytes("UTF-8");

String encoded = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(bytes);

byte[] decoded = Base64.getDecoder().decode(encoded);