.po 1i
.TH A64L 3 Bell
.V 08/15/84 17:16:49
.\" @[$]a64l.3	1.5 08/15/84 17:16:49 - Zilog Inc.
.ad
.fi
.SH NAME
a64l, l64a \- convert between long and base-64 \s-1ASCII\s0
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
\fB long a64l \fI(s)
\fB char \fR*s ;
.sp
\fB char *l64a \fI(l)
\fB long \fIl ;
.SH DESCRIPTION
These routines are used to maintain numbers stored in
.I base-64\^
.SM ASCII.
This is a notation by which long integers can be represented
by up to six characters; each character represents a "digit"
in a radix-64 notation.
.PP
The characters used to represent "digits" are:
.B .
for 0,
.B /
for 1,
.B 0
through
.B 9
for 2\-11,
.B A
through
.B Z
for 12\-37, and
.B a
through
.B z
for 38\-63.
.PP
.B A64l\^
takes a pointer to a null-terminated base-64 representation
and returns a corresponding
.B long
value.
.B L64a\^
takes a
.B long
argument and returns a pointer to the corresponding base-64
representation.
.SH LIMITATIONS
The value returned by
.B l64a\^
is a pointer into a static buffer, the contents of which are
overwritten by each call.