code: 9ferno

ref: 0ee70192a6748cb9adf572ac584ca7dd417cf1ef
dir: /man/1/uuencode/

View raw version
.TH UUENCODE 1 
.SH NAME
uuencode, uudecode \- encode/decode a file
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B uuencode
[
.I sourcefile
] 
.I remotefile
.PP
.B uudecode
[
.B -p
]
[
.I encodedfile ...
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Uuencode
and
.I Uudecode
are used to transmit files over transmission mediums that do not support other than simple
ASCII data.
.PP
.I Uuencode
converts a file to a purely ASCII based representation. It encodes the contents of
.I sourcefile
or the standard input if no source file is given. The 
.I remotefile
is included in the encoded file's header  as the name of the file into which
.I uudecode
should place the decoded data. The header also includes the permission modes of the
source file so that these  can be preserved on decoding. The encoded output of
.I uuencode
is sent to the standard output.
.PP
.I Uudecode
reads a file, ignoring any leading and trailing lines that are not part of the encoding, and
recreates the original file with the filename and mode specified in it's header. The file
to decode is 
.I encodedfile
or standard input if none is given. The 
.B -p
flag can be used to send the decoded data to standard output rather than saving it in
the file whose name is specified in the header.
.SH EXAMPLES
.PP
Encode a dis file limbo.dis so that it can be included in a mail message:
.IP
.EX 
uuencode limbo.dis limbo.dis > tmp
<place in mail message and send to recipient>
.EE
.PP
Decode the mail message(msg say):
.IP
.EX
cat msg | uudecode
.EE
.PP
This creates the file limbo.dis.
.PP
Decode the mail message into a file of your choosing(tmp.dis say):
.IP
.EX
cat msg | uudecode -p > tmp.dis
.EE
.SH SOURCE
.B /appl/cmd/uuencode.b
.br
.B /appl/cmd/uudecode.b
.SH BUGS
The encoded file is expanded by at least a third.
.br
Decoding a file may overwrite an existing file.
.br
Uuencode should take the remote file name to be the same as the source file if one
is not given.