base58

A pure Haskell implementation of base58 and base58check encoding & decoding on strict ByteStrings.

Usage

A sample GHCi session:

  > :set -XOverloadedStrings
  >
  > -- import qualified
  > import qualified Data.ByteString.Base58 as B58
  > import qualified Data.ByteString.Base58Check as B58Check
  >
  > -- simple base58 encoding and decoding
  > let b58 = B58.encode "hello world"
  > b58
  "StV1DL6CwTryKyV"
  >
  > B58.decode b58
  Just "hello world"
  >
  > -- base58check is a versioned, checksummed format
  > let b58check = B58Check.encode "\NULhello world" -- 0x00 version byte
  > b58check
  "13vQB7B6MrGQZaxCqW9KER"
  >
  > B58Check.decode b58check
  Just "\NULhello world"

Documentation

Haddocks (API documentation, etc.) are hosted at docs.ppad.tech/base58.

Performance

The aim is best-in-class performance for pure, highly-auditable Haskell code.

Current benchmark figures on a M4 Silicon MacBook Air look like (use cabal bench to run the benchmark suite):

  benchmarking ppad-base58/base58/encode/hello world
  time                 350.3 ns   (349.2 ns .. 352.0 ns)
                       0.999 R²   (0.997 R² .. 1.000 R²)
  mean                 353.0 ns   (351.9 ns .. 354.9 ns)
  std dev              4.705 ns   (3.411 ns .. 7.449 ns)
  variance introduced by outliers: 13% (moderately inflated)

  benchmarking ppad-base58/base58/decode/StV1DL6CwTryKyV
  time                 377.7 ns   (373.7 ns .. 380.7 ns)
                       0.999 R²   (0.999 R² .. 1.000 R²)
  mean                 379.4 ns   (376.8 ns .. 381.8 ns)
  std dev              9.020 ns   (7.823 ns .. 10.76 ns)
  variance introduced by outliers: 32% (moderately inflated)

  benchmarking ppad-base58/base58check/encode/0x00, hello world
  time                 1.197 μs   (1.195 μs .. 1.200 μs)
                       1.000 R²   (1.000 R² .. 1.000 R²)
  mean                 1.200 μs   (1.198 μs .. 1.202 μs)
  std dev              7.256 ns   (6.187 ns .. 8.819 ns)

  benchmarking ppad-base58/base58check/decode/13vQB7B6MrGQZaxCqW9KER
  time                 1.222 μs   (1.218 μs .. 1.225 μs)
                       1.000 R²   (1.000 R² .. 1.000 R²)
  mean                 1.220 μs   (1.217 μs .. 1.223 μs)
  std dev              9.566 ns   (8.250 ns .. 11.28 ns)

You should build with the 'llvm' flag for maximum performance.

Security

This library aims at the maximum security achievable in a garbage-collected language under an optimizing compiler such as GHC, in which strict constant-timeness can be challenging to achieve.

If you discover any vulnerabilities, please disclose them via security@ppad.tech.

Development

You'll require Nix with flake support enabled. Enter a development shell with:

$ nix develop

Then do e.g.:

$ cabal repl ppad-base58

to get a REPL for the main library.

Attribution

The vectors used in the test suite for both base58 and base58check are verbatim from paulmillr's scure-base library.