Why Does This Happen?
Unlike in web browsers (where atob()
is a global function), in Node.js versions below 16 the atob()
function is not available in the global namespace. For this reason, when you try to access it directly, it throws a ReferenceError
, for example, like in the following case:
// ReferenceError: atob is not defined
console.log(atob('Zm9vYmFy'));
How to Fix the Issue?
You can use the Buffer.from()
method instead to decode a base64-encoded string, for example, like so:
const decodedStr = Buffer.from('Zm9vYmFy', 'base64').toString('utf8'); console.log(decodedStr); // 'foobar'
Please note that atob()
was added to the global namespace in Node.js v16 (as legacy support). Therefore, you can also upgrade Node.js to v16+. However, it is recommended to use the Buffer.from()
method for decoding a base64-encoded string (as it can handle characters beyond the ASCII range).
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