github.com/rstandt/terraform@v0.12.32-0.20230710220336-b1063613405c/website/docs/configuration/functions/filebase64.html.md (about) 1 --- 2 layout: "functions" 3 page_title: "filebase64 - Functions - Configuration Language" 4 sidebar_current: "docs-funcs-file-filebase64" 5 description: |- 6 The filebase64 function reads the contents of the file at the given path and 7 returns them as a base64-encoded string. 8 --- 9 10 # `filebase64` Function 11 12 -> **Note:** This page is about Terraform 0.12 and later. For Terraform 0.11 and 13 earlier, see 14 [0.11 Configuration Language: Interpolation Syntax](../../configuration-0-11/interpolation.html). 15 16 `filebase64` reads the contents of a file at the given path and returns them as 17 a base64-encoded string. 18 19 ```hcl 20 filebase64(path) 21 ``` 22 23 The result is a Base64 representation of the raw bytes in the given file. 24 Strings in the Terraform language are sequences of Unicode characters, so 25 Base64 is the standard way to represent raw binary data that cannot be 26 interpreted as Unicode characters. Resource types that operate on binary 27 data will accept this data encoded in Base64, thus avoiding the need to 28 decode the result of this function. 29 30 Terraform uses the "standard" Base64 alphabet as defined in 31 [RFC 4648 section 4](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4648#section-4). 32 33 This function can be used only with functions that already exist as static 34 files on disk at the beginning of a Terraform run. Language functions do not 35 participate in the dependency graph, so this function cannot be used with 36 files that are generated dynamically during a Terraform operation. 37 38 ## Examples 39 40 ``` 41 > filebase64("${path.module}/hello.txt") 42 SGVsbG8gV29ybGQ= 43 ``` 44 45 ## Related Functions 46 47 * [`file`](./file.html) also reads the contents of a given file, 48 but interprets the data as UTF-8 text and returns the result directly 49 as a string, without any further encoding. 50 * [`base64decode`](./base64decode.html) can decode a Base64 string representing 51 bytes in UTF-8, but in practice `base64decode(filebase64(...))` is equivalent 52 to the shorter expression `file(...)`.