On standards (and testing)

RFC 4648 defines the Base16, Base32 and Base64 encodings. Base16 (aka hex) and Base64 are widely known and used, but Base32 is an odd duck. It is rarely used, and there are several incompatible variants, of which the RFC acknowledges two: [A-Z2-7] and [0-9A-V].

One of the uses of Base32, and the reason for my interest in it, is in Google’s otpauth URI scheme for exchanging HOTP and TOTP keys. I needed a Base32 codec for my OATH library, so when a cursory search for a lightweight permissive-licensed implementation failed to turn up anything, I wrote my own.

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