JavaScript has two globally available metods for working with Base64: atob() and btoa(). Their names clearly look like they were borrowed from older languages. In C, for instance, the standard library includes functions like atoi and atof:
atoi means ASCII to integer, and atof means ASCII to float (though in reality it returns a double).
So what do you think the atob function does in JavaScript? ASCII to Base64? In other words, converting a regular string into a Base64 string? Nope! It does the exact opposite: it converts a Base64 string into a "regular" string. And btoa, in turn, converts a regular string into Base64!
Who thought it was a good idea to swap the names like that? Love JS.
#include <stdlib.h> char str[] = "123"; int num = atoi(str); // 123
atoi means ASCII to integer, and atof means ASCII to float (though in reality it returns a double).
So what do you think the atob function does in JavaScript? ASCII to Base64? In other words, converting a regular string into a Base64 string? Nope! It does the exact opposite: it converts a Base64 string into a "regular" string. And btoa, in turn, converts a regular string into Base64!
console.log(btoa('Famabara')); // 'RmFtYWJhcmE='
console.log(atob('RmFtYWJhcmE')); // 'Famabara'
Who thought it was a good idea to swap the names like that? Love JS.
