Node.js throws "btoa is not defined" error

Question

In my node.js application I did an npm install btoa-atob so that I could use the btoa() and atob() functions which are native in client-side javascript but for some reason weren't included in node. The new directory showed up in my node_modules folder, which itself is in root alongside app.js. Then I made sure to add btoa-atob as a dependency in my package.json file which is in root.

However, for some reason, it still will not work.

console.log(btoa("Hello World!"));

^ should output "SGVsbG8gV29ybGQh" to the console, but instead, I get the error:

btoa is not defined.

Did I not do the install properly? What did I overlook?

Answer 1

The 'btoa-atob' module does not export a programmatic interface, it only provides command line utilities.

If you need to convert to Base64 you could do so using Buffer:

console.log(Buffer.from('Hello World!').toString('base64'));

Reverse (assuming the content you're decoding is a utf8 string):

console.log(Buffer.from(b64Encoded, 'base64').toString());

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Note: prior to Node v4, use new Buffer rather than Buffer.from.