Base64pp - A Modern C++ Implementation Of Base64 Encoding

This project was created for a post on my personal blog where I explain how to implement a Base64 encoder using C++ code.

Project Dependencies

Base64pp doesn't rely on any third-party libraries per se, but the unit tests were implemented with GTest. However, the dependencies were managed with Conan so you do need to install that first.

Regarding the build system, this project requires a farily recent version of CMake. In addition, your favourite compiler also needs to support C++20. For more information, visit the Base64 encoding with C++ post.

Building The Project

Building from the command line is fairly simple. In this section, we're assuming you're on a bash-like terminal, with CMake and Conan accessible. For building on IDE environments, please see the later sections (Visual Studio and Clion).

Firstly, create a build directory where all the Conan and build files will be stored:

cd ${PROJECT_ROOT_DIR}
mkdir build && cd build

Note that ${PROJECT_ROOT_DIR} is the path to the directory where this git repository was cloned to.

Following that, simply install the Conan dependencies:

conan install --build=missing ..

Note: if Conan did not properly identify your build profile, specify the compiler, compiler.libcxx, build_type and architecture to the above with the -s flags. Find out more about the settings in this page.

With all the CMake Find*.cmake files installed under build/ by Conan, we can simply configure and build with CMake:

cmake -DCMAKE_MODULE_PATH="$(pwd)" ..

cmake --build . -j${N_PROCS}      

That's it! You should now have the project fully built under the build/ directory. Note that we're assumed you're running these commands from build/, and ${N_PROCS} is the number of cores available in your machine.

Integrating The Build With Clion

To integrate with CLion, simply open the root directory of the project with CLion (where the main CMakeLists.txt is located).

If you have followed the Conan installation steps above, you should have a bunch of Find*.cmake files in the build/ directory. For CLion's integrated CMake to configure the project, you need to provie the absolute path to build/. To achieve this, add

-DCMAKE_MODULE_PATH="/some/path/to/base64pp/build"

Under Settings -> Build, Execution, Deployment -> CMake, in the "Cmake Options" textbox. After saving these changes, CLion should fully configure the project and building / debugging be available.

Integrating With Visual Studio

Similar to the CLion integration, open the root directory containing the CMakeLists.txt, then add the following CMake variables to your build configuration's CMakeSettings.json:

"variables": [
    {
      "name": "CMAKE_MODULE_PATH",
      "value": "path/to/base64pp/build",
      "type": "FILEPATH"
    }
  ]

After that, reload the CMake and you're good to go.

Learn How Base64 Works

If you're interested in finding out how this implementation works and how it came about, please read the post I made on how to Base64 encode and decode with C++.

If you have any questions, suggestions or feedback, either create a PR or feel free to drop a comment in the post!