How to convert binary to bytes in bash

Question

How to convert the following go code to bash

    data, _ := base64.StdEncoding.DecodeString("nJpGBA==")
    fmt.Println(data)

    //Output
    [156 154 70 4]

I got up to here

    echo nJpGBA== |base64 -d

Ralf · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-14 16:59:31Z

3

Not a exact match, but:

echo nJpGBA== |base64 -d  | od -A n -t u1

Output: 156 154 70 4

Note leading space and multiple spaces between.

Other solution. Assign it to an array:

val_array=( $(echo nJpGBA== |base64 -d  | od -A n -t u1) )
echo "${val_array[@]}"

Output: 156 154 70 4

The command od dumps any binary files, by default in octal values. Here it reads from stdin, as no file is given.

answered Jan 14, 2019 at 16:55

Ralf

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1 Comment

Very nice. Could you explain the od flags ? Will it work whatever the input is or will you need to adjust the flags ?