title: effective solution: base32 encoding in php
body: <p>I am looking for a base32 function/class for php. the different classes and function that i found are all very ineffective. I ran a benchmark and came to the following result:</p>
  
  <p>10000 decodings:</p>
  
  <p>base32: 2.3273 seconds</p>
  
  <p>base64: 0.0062 seconds</p>
  
  <p>The base32 class which I have used is:</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.base-convert.php#102232" rel="noreferrer">http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.base-convert.php#102232</a></p>
  
  <p>Is there any way which is simpler?</p>
  
  <p>The reason why I want to use base32 is that it is not case sensitive and as a result I have no problems any more regarding url parameters which on some system (e.g. email systems) are always converted to lowercase letters.</p>
  
  <p>If you have a better alternative for lowercase encoding, I would also love to hear them.</p>