| --- |
| page_title: base64encode - Functions - Configuration Language |
| description: The base64encode function applies Base64 encoding to a string. |
| --- |
| |
| # `base64encode` Function |
| |
| `base64encode` applies Base64 encoding to a string. |
| |
| Terraform uses the "standard" Base64 alphabet as defined in |
| [RFC 4648 section 4](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4648#section-4). |
| |
| Strings in the Terraform language are sequences of unicode characters rather |
| than bytes, so this function will first encode the characters from the string |
| as UTF-8, and then apply Base64 encoding to the result. |
| |
| The Terraform language applies Unicode normalization to all strings, and so |
| passing a string through `base64decode` and then `base64encode` may not yield |
| the original result exactly. |
| |
| While we do not recommend manipulating large, raw binary data in the Terraform |
| language, Base64 encoding is the standard way to represent arbitrary byte |
| sequences, and so resource types that accept or return binary data will use |
| Base64 themselves, and so this function exists primarily to allow string |
| data to be easily provided to resource types that expect Base64 bytes. |
| |
| `base64encode` is, in effect, a shorthand for calling |
| [`textencodebase64`](/language/functions/textencodebase64) with the encoding name set to |
| `UTF-8`. |
| |
| ## Examples |
| |
| ``` |
| > base64encode("Hello World") |
| SGVsbG8gV29ybGQ= |
| ``` |
| |
| ## Related Functions |
| |
| * [`base64decode`](/language/functions/base64decode) performs the opposite operation, |
| decoding Base64 data and interpreting it as a UTF-8 string. |
| * [`textencodebase64`](/language/functions/textencodebase64) is a more general function that |
| supports character encodings other than UTF-8. |
| * [`base64gzip`](/language/functions/base64gzip) applies gzip compression to a string |
| and returns the result with Base64 encoding all in one operation. |
| * [`filebase64`](/language/functions/filebase64) reads a file from the local filesystem |
| and returns its raw bytes with Base64 encoding, without creating an |
| intermediate Unicode string. |
