github.com/hugorut/terraform@v1.1.3/website/docs/language/functions/filebase64.mdx (about) 1 --- 2 page_title: filebase64 - Functions - Configuration Language 3 description: |- 4 The filebase64 function reads the contents of the file at the given path and 5 returns them as a base64-encoded string. 6 --- 7 8 # `filebase64` Function 9 10 `filebase64` reads the contents of a file at the given path and returns them as 11 a base64-encoded string. 12 13 ```hcl 14 filebase64(path) 15 ``` 16 17 The result is a Base64 representation of the raw bytes in the given file. 18 Strings in the Terraform language are sequences of Unicode characters, so 19 Base64 is the standard way to represent raw binary data that cannot be 20 interpreted as Unicode characters. Resource types that operate on binary 21 data will accept this data encoded in Base64, thus avoiding the need to 22 decode the result of this function. 23 24 Terraform uses the "standard" Base64 alphabet as defined in 25 [RFC 4648 section 4](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4648#section-4). 26 27 This function can be used only with functions that already exist as static 28 files on disk at the beginning of a Terraform run. Language functions do not 29 participate in the dependency graph, so this function cannot be used with 30 files that are generated dynamically during a Terraform operation. 31 32 ## Examples 33 34 ``` 35 > filebase64("${path.module}/hello.txt") 36 SGVsbG8gV29ybGQ= 37 ``` 38 39 ## Related Functions 40 41 * [`file`](/language/functions/file) also reads the contents of a given file, 42 but interprets the data as UTF-8 text and returns the result directly 43 as a string, without any further encoding. 44 * [`base64decode`](/language/functions/base64decode) can decode a Base64 string representing 45 bytes in UTF-8, but in practice `base64decode(filebase64(...))` is equivalent 46 to the shorter expression `file(...)`.