Encoding & Formats

Encode, decode, and convert between data formats. Use when working with Base64, URL encoding, hex, Unicode, JWT tokens, hashing, checksums, or converting between serialization formats like JSON, MessagePack, and protobuf wire format.

Encode, decode, and inspect data in common formats. Covers Base64, URL encoding, hex, Unicode, JWTs, hashing, checksums, and serialization formats.

When to Use

• Decoding a Base64 string from an API response or config
• URL-encoding parameters for HTTP requests
• Inspecting hex dumps of binary data
• Decoding JWT tokens to see claims
• Computing or verifying file checksums
• Converting between character encodings (UTF-8, Latin-1, etc.)
• Understanding wire formats (protobuf, MessagePack)

Base64

Encode and decode

bash

# Encode string
echo -n "Hello, World!" | base64
# SGVsbG8sIFdvcmxkIQ==

# Decode string
echo "SGVsbG8sIFdvcmxkIQ==" | base64 -d
# Hello, World!

# Encode a file
base64 image.png > image.b64
cat file.bin | base64

# Decode a file
base64 -d image.b64 > image.png

# Base64url (URL-safe variant: + → -, / → _, no padding)
echo -n "Hello" | base64 | tr '+/' '-_' | tr -d '='
# Base64url decode
echo "SGVsbG8" | tr '-_' '+/' | base64 -d

In code

javascript

// JavaScript (browser + Node.js 16+)
btoa('Hello');                    // "SGVsbG8="
atob('SGVsbG8=');                 // "Hello"

// Node.js Buffer
Buffer.from('Hello').toString('base64');           // "SGVsbG8="
Buffer.from('SGVsbG8=', 'base64').toString();      // "Hello"

// Binary data
Buffer.from(binaryData).toString('base64');
Buffer.from(b64String, 'base64');

python

# Python
import base64

base64.b64encode(b"Hello").decode()     # "SGVsbG8="
base64.b64decode("SGVsbG8=")            # b"Hello"

# URL-safe Base64
base64.urlsafe_b64encode(b"Hello").decode()
base64.urlsafe_b64decode("SGVsbG8=")

URL Encoding

Encode and decode

bash

# Python one-liner
python3 -c "from urllib.parse import quote; print(quote('hello world & foo=bar'))"
# hello%20world%20%26%20foo%3Dbar

# Decode
python3 -c "from urllib.parse import unquote; print(unquote('hello%20world%20%26%20foo%3Dbar'))"
# hello world & foo=bar

# curl does it automatically for --data-urlencode
curl -G --data-urlencode "q=hello world & more" https://api.example.com/search

In code

javascript

// JavaScript
encodeURIComponent('hello world & foo=bar');
// "hello%20world%20%26%20foo%3Dbar"

decodeURIComponent('hello%20world%20%26%20foo%3Dbar');
// "hello world & foo=bar"

// encodeURI vs encodeURIComponent:
encodeURI('https://example.com/path?q=hello world');
// "https://example.com/path?q=hello%20world" (preserves URL structure)
encodeURIComponent('https://example.com/path?q=hello world');
// "https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fpath%3Fq%3Dhello%20world" (encodes everything)

python

from urllib.parse import quote, unquote, urlencode

quote('hello world')            # 'hello%20world'
unquote('hello%20world')        # 'hello world'
urlencode({'q': 'hello world', 'page': 1})  # 'q=hello+world&page=1'

Hex

View and convert

bash

# File hex dump
xxd file.bin | head -20
xxd -l 64 file.bin          # First 64 bytes only

# Hex dump (compact, no ASCII)
xxd -p file.bin

# Convert hex to binary
echo "48656c6c6f" | xxd -r -p
# Hello

# od (alternative)
od -A x -t x1z file.bin | head -20

# hexdump
hexdump -C file.bin | head -20

# Python
python3 -c "print(bytes.fromhex('48656c6c6f').decode())"  # Hello
python3 -c "print('Hello'.encode().hex())"                 # 48656c6c6f

In code

javascript

// JavaScript
Buffer.from('Hello').toString('hex');           // "48656c6c6f"
Buffer.from('48656c6c6f', 'hex').toString();    // "Hello"

// Number to hex
(255).toString(16);     // "ff"
parseInt('ff', 16);     // 255

python

# Python
"Hello".encode().hex()                  # '48656c6c6f'
bytes.fromhex('48656c6c6f').decode()    # 'Hello'
hex(255)                                # '0xff'
int('ff', 16)                           # 255

Unicode

Inspect characters

bash

# Show Unicode code points
echo -n "Hello 世界" | python3 -c "
import sys
for char in sys.stdin.read():
    print(f'U+{ord(char):04X}  {char}  {char.encode(\"utf-8\").hex()}')"
# U+0048  H  48
# U+0065  e  65
# ...
# U+4E16  世  e4b896
# U+754C  界  e7958c

# Convert Unicode escape to character
printf '\u0048\u0065\u006c\u006c\u006f'   # Hello
echo -e '\xE4\xB8\x96\xE7\x95\x8C'       # 世界

# File encoding detection
file -bi document.txt
# text/plain; charset=utf-8

Encoding conversion

bash

# Convert between encodings
iconv -f ISO-8859-1 -t UTF-8 input.txt > output.txt
iconv -f UTF-16 -t UTF-8 input.txt > output.txt

# List available encodings
iconv -l

# Python
python3 -c "
with open('latin1.txt', 'r', encoding='iso-8859-1') as f:
    content = f.read()
with open('utf8.txt', 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f:
    f.write(content)
"

Common Unicode issues

text

BOM (Byte Order Mark):
  UTF-8 BOM: EF BB BF at start of file
  Remove: sed -i '1s/^\xEF\xBB\xBF//' file.txt

Normalization (NFC vs NFD):
  "é" can be U+00E9 (one char) or U+0065 U+0301 (e + combining accent)
  Python: import unicodedata; unicodedata.normalize('NFC', text)

Mojibake (wrong encoding):
  "café" appears as "café" → file is UTF-8 but read as Latin-1
  Fix: re-read with correct encoding

JWT (JSON Web Tokens)

Decode a JWT

bash

# JWT has 3 parts separated by dots: header.payload.signature
# Each part is Base64url-encoded

# Decode header and payload
TOKEN="eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzdWIiOiIxMjM0NTY3ODkwIiwibmFtZSI6IkpvaG4gRG9lIiwiaWF0IjoxNTE2MjM5MDIyfQ.SflKxwRJSMeKKF2QT4fwpMeJf36POk6yJV_adQssw5c"

# Decode header
echo "$TOKEN" | cut -d. -f1 | tr '-_' '+/' | base64 -d 2>/dev/null | jq
# {"alg":"HS256","typ":"JWT"}

# Decode payload
echo "$TOKEN" | cut -d. -f2 | tr '-_' '+/' | base64 -d 2>/dev/null | jq
# {"sub":"1234567890","name":"John Doe","iat":1516239022}

# One-liner function
jwt_decode() {
    echo "$1" | cut -d. -f2 | tr '-_' '+/' | base64 -d 2>/dev/null | jq
}
jwt_decode "$TOKEN"

In code

javascript

// JavaScript (no library needed for decoding)
function decodeJWT(token) {
    const [header, payload] = token.split('.').slice(0, 2)
        .map(part => JSON.parse(atob(part.replace(/-/g, '+').replace(/_/g, '/'))));
    return { header, payload };
}

// Check expiry
function isJWTExpired(token) {
    const { payload } = decodeJWT(token);
    return payload.exp && payload.exp < Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000);
}

python

# Python
import json, base64

def decode_jwt(token):
    parts = token.split('.')
    # Add padding
    def pad(s): return s + '=' * (4 - len(s) % 4)
    header = json.loads(base64.urlsafe_b64decode(pad(parts[0])))
    payload = json.loads(base64.urlsafe_b64decode(pad(parts[1])))
    return header, payload

header, payload = decode_jwt(token)

Hashing

Common hash functions

bash

# MD5 (not for security — only for checksums/dedup)
echo -n "Hello" | md5sum        # Linux
echo -n "Hello" | md5           # macOS

# SHA-256 (standard for integrity)
echo -n "Hello" | sha256sum
echo -n "Hello" | shasum -a 256

# SHA-1 (deprecated for security, still used in git)
echo -n "Hello" | sha1sum

# SHA-512
echo -n "Hello" | sha512sum

# Hash a file
sha256sum file.bin
md5sum file.bin

# openssl (works everywhere)
echo -n "Hello" | openssl dgst -sha256
openssl dgst -sha256 file.bin

In code

javascript

// Node.js
const crypto = require('crypto');
crypto.createHash('sha256').update('Hello').digest('hex');
// "185f8db32271fe25f561a6fc938b2e264306ec304eda518007d1764826381969"

// File hash
const fs = require('fs');
const hash = crypto.createHash('sha256');
hash.update(fs.readFileSync('file.bin'));
console.log(hash.digest('hex'));

python

import hashlib
hashlib.sha256(b"Hello").hexdigest()
# "185f8db32271fe25f561a6fc938b2e264306ec304eda518007d1764826381969"

# File hash
with open("file.bin", "rb") as f:
    print(hashlib.sha256(f.read()).hexdigest())

Checksums for file integrity

bash

# Generate checksum file
sha256sum *.tar.gz > checksums.sha256

# Verify checksums
sha256sum -c checksums.sha256

# Compare two files without reading content
sha256sum file1.bin file2.bin
# or
cmp file1.bin file2.bin && echo "Identical" || echo "Different"

Serialization Formats

JSON ↔ other formats

bash

# JSON to YAML
python3 -c "import json, yaml, sys; yaml.dump(json.load(sys.stdin), sys.stdout)" < data.json

# YAML to JSON
python3 -c "import json, yaml, sys; json.dump(yaml.safe_load(sys.stdin), sys.stdout, indent=2)" < data.yaml

# JSON to CSV
jq -r '.[] | [.id, .name, .email] | @csv' data.json > data.csv

# CSV to JSON
python3 -c "
import csv, json, sys
reader = csv.DictReader(open(sys.argv[1]))
print(json.dumps(list(reader), indent=2))
" data.csv

# JSON to TOML
python3 -c "import json, tomli_w, sys; tomli_w.dump(json.load(sys.stdin), sys.stdout.buffer)" < data.json

# Pretty-print JSON
jq '.' data.json
python3 -m json.tool data.json

Binary formats (inspection)

bash

# MessagePack → JSON
python3 -c "
import msgpack, json, sys
data = msgpack.unpackb(sys.stdin.buffer.read(), raw=False)
print(json.dumps(data, indent=2))
" < data.msgpack

# Protobuf (decode without schema — shows field numbers)
protoc --decode_raw < data.pb

# CBOR → JSON
python3 -c "
import cbor2, json, sys
data = cbor2.loads(sys.stdin.buffer.read())
print(json.dumps(data, indent=2, default=str))
" < data.cbor

Quick Decode Script

bash

#!/bin/bash
# decode.sh — Auto-detect and decode common encoded strings
INPUT="${1:-$(cat)}"

# Try Base64
B64_DECODED=$(echo "$INPUT" | base64 -d 2>/dev/null)
if [[ $? -eq 0 && -n "$B64_DECODED" ]]; then
    echo "Base64 → $B64_DECODED"
fi

# Try URL encoding
if echo "$INPUT" | grep -q '%[0-9A-Fa-f]\{2\}'; then
    URL_DECODED=$(python3 -c "from urllib.parse import unquote; print(unquote('$INPUT'))" 2>/dev/null)
    echo "URL   → $URL_DECODED"
fi

# Try JWT
if echo "$INPUT" | grep -qP '^eyJ[A-Za-z0-9_-]+\.eyJ[A-Za-z0-9_-]+\.'; then
    echo "JWT header:"
    echo "$INPUT" | cut -d. -f1 | tr '-_' '+/' | base64 -d 2>/dev/null | jq
    echo "JWT payload:"
    echo "$INPUT" | cut -d. -f2 | tr '-_' '+/' | base64 -d 2>/dev/null | jq
fi

# Try hex
if echo "$INPUT" | grep -qP '^[0-9a-fA-F]+$' && [[ $((${#INPUT} % 2)) -eq 0 ]]; then
    HEX_DECODED=$(echo "$INPUT" | xxd -r -p 2>/dev/null)
    if [[ -n "$HEX_DECODED" ]]; then
        echo "Hex   → $HEX_DECODED"
    fi
fi

Tips

• Base64 increases data size by ~33%. Use it for embedding binary data in text formats (JSON, XML, email), not for compression or encryption.
• Base64url (RFC 4648) uses - and _ instead of + and /, and omits padding =. JWTs and URL parameters use this variant.
• SHA-256 is the standard for integrity checks. MD5 is fine for dedup and non-security checksums but broken for cryptographic use.
• JWTs are signed, not encrypted. Anyone can decode the header and payload. Only the signature verifies authenticity. Never put secrets in JWT claims.
• When files display garbled text (mojibake), the problem is almost always wrong encoding assumption. Check with file -bi and re-read with the correct encoding.
• xxd -p (plain hex) and xxd -r -p (reverse) are the fastest way to convert between binary and hex on the command line.
• URL-encode with encodeURIComponent (JavaScript) or urllib.parse.quote (Python), not by hand. Manual encoding misses edge cases.