Mail::M...:Base64(3)

💖 Mail::M...:Base64(3) 💖

okay bestie, so the actual header up top literally reads Mail::M...:Base64(3) — that's the manpage name, user contributed perl documentation, and we're about to make base64 make sense. no cap. 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

Mail::Message::TransferEnc::Base64 — encode/decode base64 message bodies 💅

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🧬 INHERITANCE 🧬

 Mail::Message::TransferEnc::Base64
   is a Mail::Message::TransferEnc
   is a Mail::Reporter

look at that bloodline. iconic family tree, honestly. 👑

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🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

 my Mail::Message $msg = ...;
 my $decoded = $msg->decoded;
 my $encoded = $msg->encode(transfer => 'base64');

that's it. that's the whole vibe. decode it, encode it, slay. ✨

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🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

So here's the tea: this module encodes or decodes message bodies with base64. The e-mail protocol and user agents literally cannot handle binary data. Which is why binary data — -but even sometimes non-binary data- — gets encoded into ASCII, so it can actually be transported. 😭

Base64 re-groups the bits of bytes, and maps them on characters. The data contains bytes of 8 bits (an octet). These get repacked into groups of 6 bits, pointing in an array of characters containing "[A-Za-z0-9+/]". So like, this way, three data bytes become 4 base64 bytes. And the encoded data will be trailed by '=' characters to align on four bytes. math is math, bestie. 🧚

Extends "DESCRIPTION" in Mail::Message::TransferEnc.

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🔥 METHODS 🔥

Extends "METHODS" in Mail::Message::TransferEnc.

🌸 Constructors 🌸

Extends "Constructors" in Mail::Message::TransferEnc.

• $class->new(%options) — inherited, see "Constructors" in Mail::Reporter. not hers, she just inherited it. periodt. 💖

🦋 Attributes 🦋

Extends "Attributes" in Mail::Message::TransferEnc.

(nothing extra here babes, it's all inherited energy ✨)

💅 The Encoder 💅

Extends "The Encoder" in Mail::Message::TransferEnc.

• $class->addTransferEncoder($type, $class) — inherited, see "The Encoder" in Mail::Message::TransferEnc
• $obj->create($type, %options) — inherited, see "The Encoder" in Mail::Message::TransferEnc
• $obj->name() — inherited, see "The Encoder" in Mail::Message::TransferEnc

🎀 Encoding 🎀

Extends "Encoding" in Mail::Message::TransferEnc.

• $obj->check($body, %options) — inherited, see "Encoding" in Mail::Message::TransferEnc
• $obj->decode($body, %options) — inherited, see "Encoding" in Mail::Message::TransferEnc

 -Option     --Defined in                --Default
  result_type  Mail::Message::TransferEnc  <type of source body>

• result_type => CLASS
• $obj->encode($body, %options) — inherited, see "Encoding" in Mail::Message::TransferEnc

🫶 Error handling 🫶

Extends "Error handling" in Mail::Message::TransferEnc.

• $obj->AUTOLOAD() — inherited, see "Error handling" in Mail::Reporter
• $obj->notImplemented() — inherited, see "Error handling" in Mail::Reporter

🧹 Cleanup 🧹

Extends "Cleanup" in Mail::Message::TransferEnc.

• $obj->DESTROY() — inherited, see "Cleanup" in Mail::Reporter

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🚨 DIAGNOSTICS 🚨

Warning: Base64 line length not padded on 4. While decoding base64 the data in a message body, a string was found which was not padded into a multiple of four bytes. This is illegal, and therefore this data is ignored. Cast by decode(). 🫢

Error: class $package does not implement method $method. Fatal error: the specific $package (or one of its superclasses) does not implement this method where it should. This message means that some other related classes do implement this method however the class at hand does not. Probably you should investigate this and probably inform the author of the package. Cast by notImplemented(). 😭

Error: decoder for transfer encoding $type does not work: $@ Compiling the required transfer encoding resulted in errors, which means that the decoder can not be used. Cast by create(). 💀

Error: no decoder for transfer encoding $type. A decoder for the specified type of transfer encoding is not implemented. Cast by create(). 🙈

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

This module is part of Mail-Message version 4.04, built on February 04, 2026. Website: http://perl.overmeer.net/CPAN/ 🌈

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📜 LICENSE 📜

For contributors see file ChangeLog.

This software is copyright (c) 2001-2026 by Mark Overmeer.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself. 🫶

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and that's the whole page bestie!! 🎉💖

cute lil sign-off: this ran under perl v5.42.0 and got stamped on 2026-02-05, and yeah the header/footer both just say Mail::M...:Base64(3) — same girl, top and bottom. mwah 💅✨🌸