{"id":10721,"date":"2006-04-25T12:18:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-25T12:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/powershell\/2006\/04\/25\/base64-encodedecode-a-string\/"},"modified":"2019-02-18T13:25:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T20:25:00","slug":"base64-encodedecode-a-string","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/base64-encodedecode-a-string\/","title":{"rendered":"Base64 Encode\/Decode a string"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I came across http:\/\/scripts.readify.net\/<\/a>  . This sight is focused on Monad and MSH and is starting a collection of scripts at: http:\/\/scripts.readify.net\/Scripts.aspx<\/a> .  You should visit their site and let them know what type of scripts would be useful to you.  <\/p>\n

I particularly liked their entry on how to Base64 encode a file.  This is something that I need occassionally and I can never remember how to do it.  I was about to include it as-is into my profile and decided that there was a better way to do this.  <\/p>\n

<IMPORTANT POINT>
Whenever you are adding some functions, you should make a conscious decision about whether those functions are best exposed as a “function” or as a “type extension”.
<\/strong><\/font><\/IMPORTANT POINT><\/p>\n

Both of these mechanisms are great and have their purpose but my observation is that people are not using type-extensions as much as they should.  One of the huge benefits of type extensions is discoverability.  Let me show you how to do this function as a type-extension and highlight the benefits of this approach.<\/p>\n

When doing a type extension, you first need to decide what TYPE you are going to extend.  In this case, I decided that I would extend SYSTEM.STRING as that was the most general purpose type for this function.  I then encoded the following in a file called My.Types.Mshxml<\/p>\n

<\/Types>
    <Type>
        <Name>System.String<\/Name>
        <Members>
            <ScriptProperty>
                <Name>ToBase64String<\/Name>
                <GetScriptBlock>
                 [System.Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::UNICODE.GetBytes($this))
  <\/GetScriptBlock>
            <\/ScriptProperty>
            <ScriptProperty>
                <Name>FromBase64String<\/Name>
                <GetScriptBlock>
                 [System.Text.Encoding]::UNICODE.GetString([System.Convert]::FromBase64String($this))
  <\/GetScriptBlock>
            <\/ScriptProperty>
        <\/Members>
    <\/Type>
<\/Types><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In my profile I load this file via the command:<\/p>\n

   Update-TypeData c:\\msh\\My.Types.mshxml<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once I do that, these properties are available to any STRING and can be discovered via Get-Member:<\/p>\n

MSH> $x=”Hello World”
<\/strong>MSH> $x |Get-Member<\/strong><\/p>\n

   TypeName: System.String<\/p>\n

Name             MemberType            Definition
—-             ———-            ———-
Clone            Method                System.Object Clone()
CompareTo        Method                System.Int32 CompareTo(Object value), System.Int32 CompareTo(String strB)
Contains         Method                System.Boolean Contains(String value)
CopyTo           Method                System.Void CopyTo(Int32 sourceIndex, Char[] destination, Int32 destinationIndex, Int32 count)
EndsWith         Method                System.Boolean EndsWith(String value), System.Boolean EndsWith(String value, StringComparison comparisonType), System.Boolean EndsWith(String value, Boolean ignoreCase, CultureInfo culture)
…<\/p>\n

Trim             Method                System.String Trim(Params Char[] trimChars), System.String Trim()
TrimEnd          Method                System.String TrimEnd(Params Char[] trimChars)
TrimStart        Method                System.String TrimStart(Params Char[] trimChars)
Chars            ParameterizedProperty System.Char Chars(Int32 index) {get;}
Length           Property              System.Int32 Length {get;}
FromBase64String<\/strong> ScriptProperty        System.Object FromBase64String {get=[System.Text.Encoding]::UNICODE.GetString([System.Convert]::FromBase64String($this));}
ToBase64String<\/strong>   ScriptProperty        System.Object ToBase64String {get=[System.Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::UNICODE.GetBytes($this));}<\/font><\/p>\n

MSH> $x
<\/strong>Hello World
MSH> $x.ToBase64String<\/strong>
SABlAGwAbABvACAAVwBvAHIAbABkAA==
MSH> $x.ToBase64String.FromBase64String
<\/strong>Hello World
MSH> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Enjoy!<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Snover
Monad Architect<\/p>\n

[Edit: Monad has now been renamed to Windows PowerShell. This script or discussion may require slight adjustments before it applies directly to newer builds.<\/i>]<\/p>\n

PSMDTAG:CMDLET: Update-TypeData<\/p>\n

PSMDTAG:FAQ: How do I base64 encode\/decode a string?<\/p>\n

PSMDTAG:PHILOSOPHY:<\/strong> Whenever you are adding some functions, you should make a conscious decision about whether those functions are best exposed as a “function” or as a “type extension”.<\/font><\/p>\n

PSMDTAG:DOTNET: System.Convert, System.Text.Encoding<\/font><\/p>\n

PSMDTAG:TYPEEXTENSION: System.String<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I came across http:\/\/scripts.readify.net\/  . This sight is focused on Monad and MSH and is starting a collection of scripts at: http:\/\/scripts.readify.net\/Scripts.aspx .  You should visit their site and let them know what type of scripts would be useful to you.  I particularly liked their entry on how to Base64 encode a file.  This is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":600,"featured_media":13641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,14,10,11,15],"class_list":["post-10721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-powershell","tag-cmdlet","tag-dotnet","tag-faq","tag-philosophy","tag-typeextension"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Today I came across http:\/\/scripts.readify.net\/  . This sight is focused on Monad and MSH and is starting a collection of scripts at: http:\/\/scripts.readify.net\/Scripts.aspx .  You should visit their site and let them know what type of scripts would be useful to you.  I particularly liked their entry on how to Base64 encode a file.  This is […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/600"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}