a64l(S)

a64l, l64a -- convert between long integer and base-64 ASCII string

Syntax

cc . . . -lc

long a64l (s)
char*s;

char *l64a (l)
long l;

Description

These functions are used to maintain numbers stored in base-64 ASCII characters. This is a notation by which long integers can be represented by up to six characters; each character represents a ``digit'' in a radix-64 notation.

The characters used to represent ``digits'' are ``.'' for 0, ``/'' for 1, ``0'' through ``9'' for 2-11, ``A'' through ``Z'' for 12-37, and ``a'' through ``z'' for 38-63.

The a64l function takes a pointer to a null-terminated base-64 representation and returns a corresponding long value. If the string pointed to by s contains more than six characters, a64l will use the first six.

The a64l function scans the character string from left to right, decoding each character as a 6-bit Radix 64 number.

The l64a function takes a long argument and returns a pointer to the corresponding base-64 representation. If the argument is 0, l64a returns a pointer to a null string.

Note

The value returned by l64a is a pointer into a static buffer, the contents of which are overwritten by each call.

Standards conformance

a64l and l64a are not part of any currently supported standard; they were developed by UNIX System Laboratories, Inc. and are maintained by The SCO Group.