@hackage / basesystems

basesystems

This project contains code for encoding/decoding numeric basesystems in Haskell. It's implemented in a strategy pattern style where BaseSystem is a type-class which provides the encoder and decoder methods on, for instance, ShortByteString, in Data.BaseSystem:

class BaseSystem a where
  encoder :: a -> ShortByteString -> String
  decoder :: a -> String -> Maybe ShortByteString

The library creates more BaseSystem classes with methods on normal ByteString in Data.BaseSystem.Strict and LazyByteString in Data.BaseSystem.Lazy. The basesystems passed as a to encoder and decoder are defined in Data.BaseSystem.DigitSystem. See the example.

Coverage

Eventually, This project aims to implement most if not all of the mulitbase specification's basesytems list.

Currently, the following basesystems are supported:

• base2
• base10
• base16(upper/lower)
• base32(upper/lower) w/pad + nopad
• base32hex(lower/upper) w/pad + nopad
• base58btc
• base64 w/pad + nopad
• base64url w/pad + nopad

Example

For an example of using basesystems, we can do the following in GHCI:

Set OverloadedStrings so strings can act as Text data and import the needed functions. Then import the basesystem functions and packValue from Data.BaseSystem.BinaryTranscoder to convert a number value directly into bytes.

λ> {-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
λ> import Data.BaseSystem (encoder, decoder, base2, base10, base16lower, base32lower)
λ> import Data.BaseSystem.BinaryTranscoder (packValue)

This shows how we can take the binary value of 123 and display it in various number systems.

λ> :t encoder
encoder :: BaseSystem a => a -> ShortByteString -> Text
λ> :t decoder
decoder :: BaseSystem a => a -> Text -> Maybe ShortByteString
λ> encoder base2 $ packValue (123 :: Int)
"1111011"
λ> encoder base16lower $ packValue (123 :: Int)
"7b"
λ> encoder base32lower $ packValue (123 :: Int)
"pm======"

We can also use encoders and decoders to translate one numeric representation to another.

λ> encoder base10 <$> decoder base2 "1111011"
Just "123"
λ> encoder base10 <$> decoder base16lower "7b"
Just "123"
λ> encoder base10 <$> decoder base32lower "pm======"
Just "123"

Development

Unit tests are provided on the main ipfshs repo, and bugs can be reported on ipfshs ticket tracker.

Licensing

The basesystems project and its modules are free software and licensed under the BSD 3-clause license. See LICENSE.txt.

Copyright © 2026 Zoey McBride | zoeymcbride@mailbox.org