Functions for base 64 in PowerShell

There are no default functions available in PowerShell for encoding and decoding base 64 strings. However, the .NET libraries contain this. Here are two wrapper functions ConvertFrom-Base64 and ConvertTo-Base64 that you can use to make this easier.

function ConvertTo-Base64
{
    [CmdletBinding(DefaultParameterSetName='String')]
    [OutputType([String])]
    Param
    (
        # String to convert to base64
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true,
                   ValueFromPipeline=$true,
                   ValueFromRemainingArguments=$false,
                   Position=0,
                   ParameterSetName='String')]
        [ValidateNotNull()]
        [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
        [string]
        $String,

        # Param2 help description
        [Parameter(ParameterSetName='ByteArray')]
        [ValidateNotNull()]
        [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
        [byte[]]
        $ByteArray
    )

    if($String) {
        return [System.Convert]::ToBase64String(([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($String)));
    } else {
        return [System.Convert]::ToBase64String($ByteArray);
    }
}



function ConvertFrom-Base64 {
    [CmdletBinding()]
    Param(
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$True,
                   Position=0,
                   ValueFromPipeline=$true)]
        [ValidateNotNull()]
        [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
        [string]
        $Base64String
    )

    return [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString(([System.Convert]::FromBase64String($Base64String)));
}

These two functions are a part of my PowerShell $profile, which I will create an article about later.