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I've looked around a bit and am having trouble finding an explanation for this. I always see the '=' character coming at the end of b64 text (for instance a PGP key). Is '=' in b64 equivalent to the null terminator '\0' in ASCII? Otherwise, what does it represent and why is it always at the end of b64 text?

Thomas M
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  • Possible duplicate of: [Why does a base64 encoded string have an = sign at the end](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6916805/why-does-a-base64-encoded-string-have-an-sign-at-the-end) – Alexander O'Mara Sep 04 '18 at 00:00

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Although the answer is indicated in the SO post, however I will give my 5 cents.

This is known as padding. A Base64 string maynot end with one or two '='. It will only be done to pad the string to required length.

SO reference is here

Gauravsa
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