Documentation

What is it?

The purpose of this tool is to easily convert a JSON object or a string to a base64 string and vice versa. Base64 encoding will convert any json data to an easy to store string. Read more about base64 here

Where to use it?

It can be used in many situations. It allows storing data as plain text without loss. Most importantly, we can store huge JSON files as an easy to store plain text string.

Example: Google Firebase service account requires a huge json certificate file but we don't want to commit this file to our repo. How do we access this file when we deploy this on a machine that has no access to that certificate?

We convert the JSON to base64 and save it as an environment variable

How to use it?

Here is an example json file from firebase service account credentials. It has all our sensitive information including private key. We can't commit this to our github repo but we need to access this data in our deployed application.

{
  "type": "service_account",
  "project_id": "donis-next-firebase-starter",
  "private_key_id": "12345",
  "private_key": "-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\n....\n-----END PRIVATE KEY-----\n",
  "client_email": "firebase-adminsdk@example.com",
  "client_id": "123",
  "auth_uri": "https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth",
  "token_uri": "https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token",
  "auth_provider_x509_cert_url": "https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/certs",
  "client_x509_cert_url": "https://www.googleapis.com/robot/v1/metadata/x509/example",
  "universe_domain": "googleapis.com"
}

Lets convert this to a base64 string using this tool so we can store it in our .env

# Firebase Service Account Cert
FIREBASE_CERT="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"

Now in our code, when we need to access this json object, we need only the environment variable. Here is how we convert it back:


const converted = JSON.parse(atob(process.env.FIREBASE_CERT));
console.log(converted);
/* Result:
{
	"type": "service_account",
	"project_id": "donis-next-firebase-starter",
	"private_key_id": "12345",
	"private_key": "-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\n....\n-----END PRIVATE KEY-----\n",
	"client_email": "firebase-adminsdk@example.com",
	"client_id": "123",
	"auth_uri": "https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth",
	"token_uri": "https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token",
	"auth_provider_x509_cert_url": "https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/certs",
	"client_x509_cert_url": "https://www.googleapis.com/robot/v1/metadata/x509/example",
	"universe_domain": "googleapis.com"
}
*/

Home