what is the "77u/" in front of base64 encoded strings?

user_7869836 0
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I'm accessing a data entry in a CSV file I requested from a server.

The value in the data entry is 77u/REFUQV9EUwo= and decodes to "DATA_DS"(without quotes). Theres also another issue as if I write the decoded message to a file I end up getting:
"DATA_DS
"
(with quotes)
What is the point of the 77u/ if when removing it I still get DATA_DS on the online base64 decoders and is it the reason that the formatting is getting screwed up?

base64
2 Answers

"77u/" is 0xef 0xbb 0xbf in base64 encoding. Those three bytes are the UTF-8 encoding of the byte order mark, which is used to signal endianness and encoding of unicode text.

user_107302420

This is maby better known under BOM. Eg. UTF-8 BOM Encoding

user_86073460
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