Tools to encode and decode files as DNA sequence text assuming 2bit style byte encodings.

dnadecode.p6

#!/usr/bin/env perl6
use v6;

sub MAIN ($file) {
    my %bases = (T => '00', C => '01', A => '10', G => '11');
    my %bytes = (0..255).map({ sprintf('%08d', $_.base(2)) }) Z=> (0..255);

    my $io = $file.IO.open;
    while (my $hunk = $io.readchars(4)) {
        last unless $hunk.chars == 4;
        print %bytes{$hunk.comb.map({%bases{$_}}).join}.chr;
    }
}

dnaencode.p6

#!/usr/bin/env perl6
use v6;

sub MAIN ($file) {
    my %bases = (T => '00', C => '01', A => '10', G => '11').invert;
    my %bytes = (0..255) Z=> (0..255).map({ sprintf('%08d', $_.base(2)) });

    my $io = $file.IO.open;
    while (my $byte = $io.getc) {
        print %bytes{$byte.ord}.comb.rotor(2).map({ %bases{$_.join} }).join;
    }
}

An example run of the tools

$ perl6 dnaencode.p6 <(echo "hello world")
CAATCACCCAGTCAGTCAGGTATTCGCGCAGGCGTACAGTCACTTTAA

Then to decode the DNA looking string back to the original plain text

$ perl6 dnadecode.p6 <(echo "CAATCACCCAGTCAGTCAGGTATTCGCGCAGGCGTACAGTCACTTTAA")
hello world