vrk base

About

Encodes and decodes between base64, base64url, hex, and base32. Works identically on macOS and Linux - no more remembering whether it is base64 -D or base64 -d. Two subcommands: encode and decode.

The problem

You write a deploy script that base64-decodes a secret on macOS. It works. CI runs on Linux and fails because macOS uses base64 -D while Linux uses base64 -d. You add an OS check and now your three-line decode is twelve lines.

Before and after

Before

if [[ "$OSTYPE" == "darwin"* ]]; then
  echo "$ENCODED" | base64 -D
else
  echo "$ENCODED" | base64 -d
fi

After

echo "$ENCODED" | vrk base decode --from base64

Example

echo 'hello' | vrk base encode --to base64

Exit codes

Flags