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<h1>The saxon:base64Binary serialization method</h1>
<p><i>Requires Saxon-PE</i></p>
<p>An additional serialization method <code>saxon:base64Binary</code> is available. This is intended to be useful when
creating binary output files, for example images. All serialization properties other than <code>method</code> are
ignored.</p>
<p>As with the <code>text</code> output method, all nodes in the result tree other than text nodes are ignored. Each text node
must hold a string that is in the lexical space of the <code>xs:base64Binary</code> data type. The sequence of octets
corresponding to this base64 value is written to the binary output file.</p>
<p>When invoking this method via an API, use the property value "{http://saxon.sf.net/}base64Binary".</p>
<p>When using this serialization method, the <code>omit-xml-declaration</code> parameter is automatically
set to "yes".</p>
<div class="codeblock"
style="border: solid thin; background-color: #B1CCC7; padding: 2px">
<pre>
<code><xsl:template name="main">
<html>
<head>
<title>An image</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>An image</h1>
<p><img src="image.gif"/></p>
</body>
</html>
<xsl:result-document method="saxon:base64Binary" href="image.gif" media-type="image/gif">
<xsl:text>iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAABGdBTUEAALGPC/xhBQAAAAlwSFlzAAA
LEwAACxMBAJqcGAAAAAd0SU1FB9YGARc5KB0XV+IAAAAddEVYdENvbW1lbnQAQ3JlYXRlZCB3aXRoIFRoZSBH
SU1Q72QlbgAAAF1JREFUGNO9zL0NglAAxPEfdLTs4BZM4DIO4C7OwQg2JoQ9LE1exdlYvBBeZ7jqch9//q1uH
4TLzw4d6+ErXMMcXuHWxId3KOETnnXXV6MJpcq2MLaI97CER3N0vr4MkhoXe0rZigAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==
</xsl:text>
</xsl:result-document>
</xsl:template>
</code>
</pre>
</div>
<p><i>The image here displays as a small red dot. Note that whitespace can be freely inserted
into the base64Binary string.</i></p>
<p>It is of course possible to construct the base64Binary value programmatically. The extension function
<a class="bodylink" href="../../extensions/functions/octetstobase64binary.xml">saxon:octets-to-base64Binary</a> may be useful to achieve this.</p>
<p>When writing output that is not entirely binary, but contains mixed binary and text, it may be more convenient
to use the text output method with the <a class="bodylink" href="../../extensions/output-extras/recognize-binary.xml">saxon:recognize-binary</a> serialization property.</p>
<p>See also the <a class="bodylink" href="../../extensions/output-extras/hexBinary-method.xml">saxon:hexBinary</a> serialization method.</p>
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