Question

Suppose you have a MD5 hash encoded in base64. Then each
character needs only 6 bits to store each character in the
resultant 22-byte string (excluding the ending ‘==’). Thus, each
base64 md5 hash can shrink down to 6*22 = 132 bits, which
requires 25% less memory space compared to the original 8*22=176
bits string.

Is there any Python module or function that lets you store base64
data in the way described above?

Answer 1

David gave an answer that works on all base64 strings.

Just use

base64.decodestring

in base64 module. That is,

import base64
binary = base64.decodestring(base64_string)

is a more memory efficient representation of the original base64 string. If you
are truncating trailing ‘==’ in your base64 md5, use it like

base64.decodestring(md5+'==')