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Can any file and its data be converted to a String or plaintext? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by cheese_greater to c/asklemmy

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've noticed some files I opened in a text editor have all kinds of crazy unrenderable chars

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[–] cheese_greater 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

But its still contains the actual data in a faithfully reproducible/useable way?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

Yes. Decoding a base64 encoded string will give you back the exact original data.

Importantly though, this isn't what you're seeing when you open files in a text editor as you describe in your original post, and if you copied the text of those files and saved a new copy it's very likely that it would not reproduce correctly.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

yes, this method doesn't lose any bits. one of its primary use before was email which was strictly text only.