base64 module

[Roy Smith]

Ken Fettig <kfettig at state.nd.us> wrote:
>Hello, I am trying to make use of the base64 module but am having problems.
>
>>>> import base64
>>>> decodestring('SVNBKjAwKiAgICAgICAgICAqMDAqICAgICAg')
>Traceback (most recent call last):
>  File "<pyshell#1>", line 1, in ?
>    decodestring('SVNBKjAwKiAgICAgICAgICAqMDAqICAgICAg')
>NameError: name 'decodestring' is not defined
>>>>
>
>What am I doing wrong. I am importing the base64 module, why can't I call
>the decodestring method?

All the import statement does is make the base64 module available, but
the objects in that module are still in the base64 namespace.  You
need to do:

>>> base64.decodestring('SVNBKjAwKiAgICAgICAgICAqMDAqICAgICAg')
'ISA*00*          *00*      '

Alternatively, you could do "from base64 import decodestring" (or
even, "from base64 import *", and then you can do:

>>> from base64 import decodestring
>>> decodestring('SVNBKjAwKiAgICAgICAgICAqMDAqICAgICAg')
'ISA*00*          *00*      '

My personal preference is to use the plain version of the import
statement, and use fully qualified names, but it's really up to you
which way you want to do it.