Base64 Encode and Decode in Node.js

Using Node on the server side, we find that we cannot use the JavaScript functions atob and btoa. They are not defined; we get the following errors:

ReferenceError: btoa is not defined

ReferenceError: atob is not defined

The functions are defined in JavaScript in the browser, but not in server-side Node.js.

To encode to base-64, instead of btoa use the following:

const myString = 'hello'
const encoded = Buffer.from(myString)
                      .toString('base64')
console.log(encoded)

Output:

aGVsbG8=

To decode from base-64, instead of atob use the following:

const base64String = 'aGVsbG8='
const decoded = Buffer.from(base64String, 'base64')
                      .toString('utf-8')
console.log(decoded)

Output:

hello