Library/Data encoding
Data Encodings (dataenc): A collection of data encoding algorithms.
Data encodings library
The data encodings library strives to provide implementations in Haskell of every major data encoding, and a few minor ones as well. Currently the following encodings are implemented:
- Base16 (
Codec.Binary.Base16
) - Base32 (
Codec.Binary.Base32
) - Base32Hex (
Codec.Binary.Base32Hex
) - Base64 (
Codec.Binary.Base64
) - Base64Url (
Codec.Binary.Base64Url
) - Uuencode (
Codec.Binary.Uu
)
The API
Main API
The module <Codec.Binary.DataEncoding> provides a type that collects the functions for an individual encoding:
data DataCodec = DataCodec {
encode :: [Word8] -> String,
decode :: String -> Maybe [Word8],
decode' :: String -> [Maybe Word8],
chop :: Int -> String -> [String],
unchop :: [String] -> String
}
It also exposes instances of this type for each encoding:
base16 :: DataCodec
base32 :: DataCodec
base32Hex :: DataCodec
base64 :: DataCodec
base64Url :: DataCodec
uu :: DataCodec
Secondary API
Each individual encoding module is also exposed and offers four functions:
encode :: [Word8] -> String
decode :: String -> Maybe [Word8]
decode' :: String -> [Maybe Word8]
chop :: Int -> String -> [String]
unchop :: [String] -> String
Description of the encodings
Base16
Implemented as it's defined in RFC 4648.
Each four bit nibble of an octet is encoded as a character in the set 0-9,A-F.
Base32
Implemented as it's defined in RFC 4648.
Five octets are expanded into eight so that only the five least significant bits are used. Each is then encoded into a 32-character encoding alphabet.
Base32Hex
Implemented as it's defined in RFC 4648.
Just like Base32 but with a different encoding alphabet. Unlike Base64 and Base32, data encoded with Base32Hex maintains its sort order when the encoded data is compared bit wise.
Base64
Implemented as it's defined in RFC 4648.
Three octets are expanded into four so that only the six least significant bits are used. Each is then encoded into a 64-character encoding alphabet.
Base64Url
Implemented as it's defined in RFC 4648.
Just like Base64 but with a different encoding alphabet. The encoding alphabet is made URL and filename safe by substituting + and / for - and _ respectively.
Uuencode
Unfortunately uuencode is badly specified and there are in fact several differing implementations of it. This implementation attempts to encode data in the same way as the uuencode utility found in GNU's sharutils. The workings of chop
and unchop
also follow how sharutils split and unsplit encoded lines.
Downloading
At the moment there is no prepared package of the source, the only option is to get the development version (see below).
Example of use
The package omnicodec contains two command line tools for encoding and decoding data.
Contributing
Retrive the source code using darcs like this:
darcs get http://code.haskell.org/dataenc/devo dataenc
Send any patches to magnus@therning.org