SYNOPSIS

use Convert::Ascii85;

my $encoded = Convert::Ascii85::encode($data);
my $decoded = Convert::Ascii85::decode($encoded);
use Convert::Ascii85 qw(ascii85_encode ascii85_decode);

my $encoded = ascii85_encode($data);
my $decoded = ascii85_decode($encoded);

DESCRIPTION

This module implements the Ascii85 (also known as Base85) algorithm for encoding binary data as text. This is done by interpreting each group of four bytes as a 32-bit integer, which is then converted to a five-digit base-85 representation using the digits from ASCII 33 ("!") to 117 ("u").

This is similar to MIME::Base64 but more space efficient: The overhead is only 1/4 of the original data (as opposed to 1/3 for Base64).

FUNCTIONS

Convert::Ascii85::encode DATA

Convert::Ascii85::encode DATA, OPTIONS

Converts the bytes in DATA to Ascii85 and returns the resulting text string. OPTIONS is a hash reference in which the following keys may be set:

compress_zero => 0

By default, four-byte chunks of null bytes ("\0\0\0\0") are converted to 'z' instead of '!!!!!'. This can be avoided by passing a false value for "compress_zero" in OPTIONS.

compress_space => 1

By default, four-byte chunks of spaces (' ') are converted to '+<VdL'. If you pass a true value for "compress_space" in OPTIONS, they will be converted to 'y' instead.

This function may be exported as "ascii85_encode" into the caller's namespace.

Convert::Ascii85::decode TEXT

Converts the Ascii85-encoded TEXT back to bytes and returns the resulting byte string. Spaces and linebreaks in TEXT are ignored.

This function may be exported as "ascii85_decode" into the caller's namespace.

AUTHOR

Lukas Mai, "<l.mai at web.de>"

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

    perldoc Convert::Ascii85

You can also look for information at:

• RT: CPAN's request tracker

  <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Convert-Ascii85>

• AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation

  <http://annocpan.org/dist/Convert-Ascii85>

• CPAN Ratings

  <http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/Convert-Ascii85>

• Search CPAN

  <http://search.cpan.org/dist/Convert-Ascii85/>

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2011 Lukas Mai.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; or the Artistic License.

See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.