How do you base-64 encode a PNG image for use in a data-uri in a CSS file?

I want to base-64 encode a PNG file, to include it in a data:url in my stylesheet. How can I do that?

I’m on a Mac, so something on the Unix command line would work great. A Python-based solution would also be grand.

This should do it in Python:

import base64
encoded = base64.b64encode(open("filename.png", "rb").read())

In python3, base64.b64encode returns a bytes instance, so it's necessary to call decode to get a str, if you are working with unicode text.

# Image data from [Wikipedia][1]
>>>image_data = b'\x89PNG\r\n\x1a\n\x00\x00\x00\rIHDR\x00\x00\x00\x05\x00\x00\x00\x05\x08\x06\x00\x00\x00\x8do&\xe5\x00\x00\x00\x1cIDAT\x08\xd7c\xf8\xff\xff?\xc3\x7f\x06 \x05\xc3 \x12\x84\xd01\xf1\x82X\xcd\x04\x00\x0e\xf55\xcb\xd1\x8e\x0e\x1f\x00\x00\x00\x00IEND\xaeB`\x82'

# String representation of bytes object includes leading "b" and quotes,  
# making the uri invalid.
>>> encoded = base64.b64encode(image_data) # Creates a bytes object
>>> 'data:image/png;base64,{}'.format(encoded)
"data:image/png;base64,b'iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAUAAAAFCAYAAACNbyblAAAAHElEQVQI12P4//8/w38GIAXDIBKE0DHxgljNBAAO9TXL0Y4OHwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg=='"


# Calling .decode() gets us the right representation
>>> encoded = base64.b64encode(image_data).decode('ascii')
>>> 'data:image/png;base64,{}'.format(encoded)
'data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAUAAAAFCAYAAACNbyblAAAAHElEQVQI12P4//8/w38GIAXDIBKE0DHxgljNBAAO9TXL0Y4OHwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg=='

If you are working with bytes directly, you can use the output of base64.b64encode without further decoding.

>>> encoded = base64.b64encode(image_data)
>>> b'data:image/png;base64,' + encoded
b'data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAUAAAAFCAYAAACNbyblAAAAHElEQVQI12P4//8/w38GIAXDIBKE0DHxgljNBAAO9TXL0Y4OHwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg=='