How do I create an image from a Base64-encoded str

Question

This question already has an answer here:

• Convert between UIImage and Base64 string 19 answers

A web service echoes a Base64 encoded image as a string. How can one decode and display this encoded image in a Swift project?

Specifically, I would like to take an image, which is already provided by the web service as a string in Base64 format, and understand how to display it in a UIImageView.

The articles I have found thus far describe deprecated techniques or are written in Objective-C, which I am not familiar with. How do you take in a Base64-encoded string and convert it to a UIImage?

Answer 1

To decode Base64 encoded string to image, you can use the following code in Swift:

let decodedData = NSData(base64EncodedString: base64String, options: NSDataBase64DecodingOptions.fromRaw(0)!)
var decodedimage = UIImage(data: decodedData)
println(decodedimage)
yourImageView.image = decodedimage as UIImage

Even better, you can check if decodedimage is nil or not before assigning to image view.

Answer 2

Turn your base64 encoded string into an NSData instance by doing something like this:

let encodedImageData = ... get string from your web service ...
let imageData = NSData(base64EncodedString: encodedImageData options: .allZeros)

Then turn the imageData into a UIImage:

let image = UIImage(data: imageData)

You can then set the image on a UIImageView for example:

imageView.image = image