How to decode base64 to text in AWS Athena
AWS

How to decode base64 to text in AWS Athena

How to use from_base64 in AWS Athena
Bartosz Mikulski
Bartosz Mikulski – 1 min read

Decoding base64 in AWS Athena requires two steps. First, we have to use the from_base64 function to get a binary representation of the decoded content. We don’t get text automatically because we can use base64 to encode as a string any binary data, for example, a picture.

Therefore, Athena does not know that the content is a string. Because of that, we have to use the from_utf8 function to convert the binary data into text.

The complete SQL looks like this:

select from_utf8( from_base64(base64_encoded_column) ) FROM some_table

One more thing. Never, ever say that base64 is encryption. It is not. That is just a method of representing binary data as a string, so you can send it to/from a REST API as a JSON object or include it in an URL.

Older post

How to combine two DataFrames with no common columns in Apache Spark

Use full outer join to combine two Apache Spark DataFrames with no common columns

Newer post

How to use WHEN CASE queires in AWS Athena

Using conditions in AWS Athena queries

Related Posts

MLOps AWS

How to deploy a Transformer-based model with custom preprocessing code to Sagemaker Endpoints using BentoML

Deploy a machine learning model with custom inference code to a Sagemaker Endpoint using BentoML
Published on: 01 Oct 2021

AWS MLOps

Multimodel deployment in Sagemaker Endpoints

How to deploy multiple models in a single Sagemaker Endpoint?
Published on: 28 May 2021

AWS

How to deploy a REST API AWS Lambda using Chalice and AWS Code Pipeline

How to create a REST API Endpoint using AWS Lambda, Chalice, and AWS Code Pipeline
Published on: 16 Apr 2021

Are you looking for an experienced AI consultant? Do you need assistance with your RAG or Agentic Workflow?
Schedule a call, send me a message on LinkedIn. Schedule a call or send me a message on LinkedIn

>