From: Ross Bamford <rossrt@...>
Date: 2006-06-04T21:31:38+09:00
Subject: Re: Writing encoded images to a file

On Sun, 2006-06-04 at 21:25 +0900, Aaron Worsham wrote:
> Word 2003 supports an xml output for documents that uses Base64 to 
> encode the embedded images.  Im looking to grab that image out of the 
> xml and write it to a file.  Im able to parse the xml and isolate the 
> Base64 string but decoding it out to a file hasn't been working for me; 
> the image doesn't come back looking correct.  Stripped down version of 
> the code assuming 'AaBaCc' represents the really long Base64 encoded GIF 
> image string:
> 
> 
>  require 'base64'
>  str = 'AaBbCc'
>  file = File.new("/test.gif", "w")
>  file.syswrite(Base64.decode64(str))

Assuming you're on Windows, you'll probably want "wb" rather than just
"w" for the file mode. Also, I'd do this:

File.open("/test.gif", "wb") do |file|
  file << Base64.decode64(str)
end

to make sure the file gets closed. 

-- 
Ross Bamford - rosco@roscopeco.REMOVE.co.uk