# MIME::Decoder::Base64

This module is BETA code, which means that the interfaces are fairly stable BUT it has not been out in the community long enough to guarantee much testing. Use with caution! Please report any errors back to eryq@zeegee.com as soon as you can.

- NAME
- SYNOPSIS
- DESCRIPTION
- AUTHOR
- VERSION

## NAME

MIME::Decoder::Base64 - encode/decode a "base64" stream

## SYNOPSIS

A generic decoder object; see MIME::Decoder for usage.

## DESCRIPTION

A MIME::Decoder subclass for the `"base64"` encoding. The name was chosen to jibe with the pre-existing MIME::Base64 utility package, which this class actually uses to translate each chunk.

- When decoding, the input is read one line at a time. The input accumulates in an internal buffer, which is decoded in multiple-of-4-sized chunks (plus a possible "leftover" input chunk, of course).

- When encoding, the input is read 45 bytes at a time: this ensures that the output lines are not too long. We chose 45 since it is a multiple of 3 and produces lines under 76 characters, as RFC-1521 specifies.

## AUTHOR

Eryq (eryq@zeegee.com), ZeeGee Software Inc (http://www.zeegee.com).

All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

## VERSION

$Revision: 5.403 $ $Date: 2000/11/04 19:54:48 $