How to save a PNG image server-side, from a base64 data URI

Question

You need to extract the base64 image data from that string, decode it and then you can save it to disk, you don't need GD since it already is a png.

$data = 'data:image/png;base64,AAAFBfj42Pj4';

list($type, $data) = explode(';', $data);
list(, $data)      = explode(',', $data);
$data = base64_decode($data);

file_put_contents('/tmp/image.png', $data);

And as a one-liner:

$data = base64_decode(preg_replace('#^data:image/\w+;base64,#i', '', $data));

An efficient method for extracting, decoding, and checking for errors is:

if (preg_match('/^data:image\/(\w+);base64,/', $data, $type)) {
    $data = substr($data, strpos($data, ',') + 1);
    $type = strtolower($type[1]); // jpg, png, gif

    if (!in_array($type, [ 'jpg', 'jpeg', 'gif', 'png' ])) {
        throw new \Exception('invalid image type');
    }
    $data = str_replace( ' ', '+', $data );
    $data = base64_decode($data);

    if ($data === false) {
        throw new \Exception('base64_decode failed');
    }
} else {
    throw new \Exception('did not match data URI with image data');
}

file_put_contents("img.{$type}", $data);

Try this:

file_put_contents('img.png', base64_decode($base64string));

file_put_contents docs

I had to replace spaces with plus symbols str_replace(' ', '+', $img); to get this working.

Here is the full code

$img = $_POST['img']; // Your data 'data:image/png;base64,AAAFBfj42Pj4';
$img = str_replace('data:image/png;base64,', '', $img);
$img = str_replace(' ', '+', $img);
$data = base64_decode($img);
file_put_contents('/tmp/image.png', $data);

Hope that helps.

It worth to say that discussed topic is documented in RFC 2397 - The "data" URL scheme (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2397)

Because of this PHP has a native way to handle such data - "data: stream wrapper" (http://php.net/manual/en/wrappers.data.php)

So you can easily manipulate your data with PHP streams:

$data = 'data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhEAAOALMAAOazToeHh0tLS/7LZv/0jvb29t/f3//Ub//ge8WSLf/rhf/3kdbW1mxsbP//mf///yH5BAAAAAAALAAAAAAQAA4AAARe8L1Ekyky67QZ1hLnjM5UUde0ECwLJoExKcppV0aCcGCmTIHEIUEqjgaORCMxIC6e0CcguWw6aFjsVMkkIr7g77ZKPJjPZqIyd7sJAgVGoEGv2xsBxqNgYPj/gAwXEQA7';

$source = fopen($data, 'r');
$destination = fopen('image.gif', 'w');

stream_copy_to_stream($source, $destination);

fclose($source);
fclose($destination);

Taken the @dre010 idea, I have extended it to another function that works with any image type: PNG, JPG, JPEG or GIF and gives a unique name to the filename

The function separate image data and image type

function base64ToImage($imageData){
    $data = 'data:image/png;base64,AAAFBfj42Pj4';
    list($type, $imageData) = explode(';', $imageData);
    list(,$extension) = explode('/',$type);
    list(,$imageData)      = explode(',', $imageData);
    $fileName = uniqid().'.'.$extension;
    $imageData = base64_decode($imageData);
    file_put_contents($fileName, $imageData);
}