Golang decode base64 data to string

Question

I am trying to decode a simple base64 encoded string in golang.

package main
import b64 "encoding/base64"
import fmt

func main() {
    data := "YmFzZTY0IGVuY29kZWQgc3RyaW5n"
    sDec, err1 := b64.StdEncoding.DecodeString(data)
    fmt.Println(sDec)
    fmt.Println(err1)
}

And the output I get is

[98 97 115 101 54 52 32 101 110 99 111 100 101 100 32 115 116 114 105 110 103] // this is the decoded data.
<nil>

Where as https://www.base64decode.net/ decodes and outputs as

base64 encoded string

How do I get the same result in golang?

Answer 1

StdEncoding.DecodeString(data) (which is base64.Encoding.DecodeString()) returns you the decoded data as byte slice ([]byte), and this is what you see printed: the decimal representation of the individal bytes.

Convert the byte slice to string if you want to see it as a string value:

fmt.Println(string(sDec))

Or use a format string where you specify you want to print is as a string:

fmt.Printf("%s\n", sDec)

Then the output will be (try it on the Go Playground):

base64 encoded string