Odd Result in base64 decoding

Question

I'm decoding this base64 string : qL0swAhW+7zioxG6CatHBw==

I'm getting this result :

$echo "qL0swAhW+7zioxG6CatHBw==" |base64 --decode : ��, V����   �G

the output supposed to be something in clear text

Answer 1

Base64 is not required to hold textual data. Indeed the whole point of such encodings is to transform binary, non-text data into text – if the result of Base64 decoding was guaranteed to be a text string, there would be no reason for Base64 to exist at all.

So your decode result is normal and correct for the input in question; it's 16 bytes of data. (Most of which are not valid UTF-8 text, and therefore shown by your terminal app as the "decode failed" question mark.)

If you expected text to be inside, then you probably got the wrong Base64 input. (This one might be an encryption key guessing by its length.)

$ echo qL0swAhW+7zioxG6CatHBw== | base64 -d | hexdump -C
00000000  a8 bd 2c c0 08 56 fb bc  e2 a3 11 ba 09 ab 47 07  |..,..V........G.|
00000010