iOS从iOS 4开始就有内置的Base64编码和解码方法(不使用libresolv)。然而，它只在iOS 7 SDK中声明。苹果文档指出，你可以在iOS 4及以上系统上使用它。

NSData *myData = ... some data
NSString *base64String = [myData base64Encoding];
NSData *decodedData = [[NSData alloc] initWithBase64Encoding:base64String];

QSUtilities库中的QSStrings类提供了一个非常非常快的实现，它从PHP Core库移植(并修改/改进)到原生Objective-C代码中。我做了一个快速的基准测试:一个5.3MB的图像(JPEG)文件编码用时少于50毫秒，解码用时约140毫秒。

整个库的代码(包括Base64方法)都可以在GitHub上找到。

或者，如果你想让代码只包含Base64方法本身，我把它贴在这里:

首先，你需要映射表:

static const char _base64EncodingTable[64] = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/";
static const short _base64DecodingTable[256] = {
    -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -1, -1, -2, -1, -1, -2, -2,
    -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2,
    -1, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, 62, -2, -2, -2, 63,
    52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2,
    -2,  0,  1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7,  8,  9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14,
    15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2,
    -2, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40,
    41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2,
    -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2,
    -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2,
    -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2,
    -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2,
    -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2,
    -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2,
    -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2,
    -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2, -2
};

编码:

+ (NSString *)encodeBase64WithString:(NSString *)strData {
    return [QSStrings encodeBase64WithData:[strData dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
}

+ (NSString *)encodeBase64WithData:(NSData *)objData {
    const unsigned char * objRawData = [objData bytes];
    char * objPointer;
    char * strResult;

    // Get the Raw Data length and ensure we actually have data
    int intLength = [objData length];
    if (intLength == 0) return nil;

    // Setup the String-based Result placeholder and pointer within that placeholder
    strResult = (char *)calloc((((intLength + 2) / 3) * 4) + 1, sizeof(char));
    objPointer = strResult;

    // Iterate through everything
    while (intLength > 2) { // keep going until we have less than 24 bits
        *objPointer++ = _base64EncodingTable[objRawData[0] >> 2];
        *objPointer++ = _base64EncodingTable[((objRawData[0] & 0x03) << 4) + (objRawData[1] >> 4)];
        *objPointer++ = _base64EncodingTable[((objRawData[1] & 0x0f) << 2) + (objRawData[2] >> 6)];
        *objPointer++ = _base64EncodingTable[objRawData[2] & 0x3f];

        // we just handled 3 octets (24 bits) of data
        objRawData += 3;
        intLength -= 3; 
    }

    // now deal with the tail end of things
    if (intLength != 0) {
        *objPointer++ = _base64EncodingTable[objRawData[0] >> 2];
        if (intLength > 1) {
            *objPointer++ = _base64EncodingTable[((objRawData[0] & 0x03) << 4) + (objRawData[1] >> 4)];
            *objPointer++ = _base64EncodingTable[(objRawData[1] & 0x0f) << 2];
            *objPointer++ = '=';
        } else {
            *objPointer++ = _base64EncodingTable[(objRawData[0] & 0x03) << 4];
            *objPointer++ = '=';
            *objPointer++ = '=';
        }
    }

    // Terminate the string-based result
    *objPointer = '\0';

    // Create result NSString object
    NSString *base64String = [NSString stringWithCString:strResult encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];

    // Free memory
    free(strResult);

    return base64String;
}

解码:

+ (NSData *)decodeBase64WithString:(NSString *)strBase64 {
    const char *objPointer = [strBase64 cStringUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
    size_t intLength = strlen(objPointer);
    int intCurrent;
    int i = 0, j = 0, k;

    unsigned char *objResult = calloc(intLength, sizeof(unsigned char));

    // Run through the whole string, converting as we go
    while ( ((intCurrent = *objPointer++) != '\0') && (intLength-- > 0) ) {
        if (intCurrent == '=') {
            if (*objPointer != '=' && ((i % 4) == 1)) {// || (intLength > 0)) {
                // the padding character is invalid at this point -- so this entire string is invalid
                free(objResult);
                return nil;
            }
            continue;
        }

        intCurrent = _base64DecodingTable[intCurrent];
        if (intCurrent == -1) {
            // we're at a whitespace -- simply skip over
            continue;
        } else if (intCurrent == -2) {
            // we're at an invalid character
            free(objResult);
            return nil;
        }

        switch (i % 4) {
            case 0:
                objResult[j] = intCurrent << 2;
                break;

            case 1:
                objResult[j++] |= intCurrent >> 4;
                objResult[j] = (intCurrent & 0x0f) << 4;
                break;

            case 2:
                objResult[j++] |= intCurrent >>2;
                objResult[j] = (intCurrent & 0x03) << 6;
                break;

            case 3:
                objResult[j++] |= intCurrent;
                break;
        }
        i++;
    }

    // mop things up if we ended on a boundary
    k = j;
    if (intCurrent == '=') {
        switch (i % 4) {
            case 1:
                // Invalid state
                free(objResult);
                return nil;

            case 2:
                k++;
                // flow through
            case 3:
                objResult[k] = 0;
        }
    }

    // Cleanup and setup the return NSData
    NSData * objData = [[[NSData alloc] initWithBytes:objResult length:j] autorelease];
    free(objResult);
    return objData;
}

下面是一个将NSData对象转换为base64的例子。它还展示了如何以另一种方式(解码一个base64编码的NSData对象):

NSData *dataTake2 = 
  [@"iOS Developer Tips" dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

// Convert to Base64 data
NSData *base64Data = [dataTake2 base64EncodedDataWithOptions:0];

// Do something with the data...

// Now convert back from Base64
NSData *nsdataDecoded = [base64Data initWithBase64EncodedData:base64Data options:0];

在mvds的出色改进中，存在两个问题。更改代码如下:

raw = tmpbuf;
inp = 0;
outbuf[outp++] = base64EncodingTable[(raw[inp] & 0xFC) >> 2];
outbuf[outp++] = base64EncodingTable[((raw[inp] & 0x03) << 4) | ((raw[inp+1] & 0xF0) >> 4)];
if ( left == 2 ) outbuf[outp++] = base64EncodingTable[((raw[inp+1] & 0x0F) << 2) | ((raw[inp+2] & 0xC0) >> 6)];
else outbuf[outp++] = '=';
outbuf[outp++] = '=';

更好的解决方案:

NSData中有一个内置函数

[data base64Encoding]; //iOS < 7.0
[data base64EncodedStringWithOptions:NSDataBase64Encoding76CharacterLineLength]; //iOS >= 7.0

iOS8及以后使用- (NSString *)base64EncodedStringWithOptions:(NSDataBase64EncodingOptions) NSData的选项