Command-line base64 encoding of file into clipboard

Often I find myself in the need to base64 encode a file. Typically an image to inline in a CSS file. I added the following to my ~/.bash_profile (OSX) for convenience:

function base64() {
openssl base64 < $1 | tr -d '\n' | pbcopy
}

Now I simply run base64 <filename> from the terminal to get the base64 encoded file in the clipboard for easy pasting into wherever I want to.