Re: Novice question on encoding Base64

[Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I vote for two "=" pads.

This is case 2 from section 5.2:

 (2) the final quantum of encoding input is exactly 8 bits; here, the
final unit of encoded output will be two characters followed by two "="
padding characters

I think you're confused about the four bits of padding you added;
perhaps the wording isn't clear enough, but they shouldn't be considered
part of the "encoding input", since they weren't part of the input, you
just added them.  

Hope that helps.  -- Nathaniel