Uuencode
and
uudecode
are used to transmit binary files over transmission mediums
that do not support other than simple
ASCII
data.
Uuencode
reads
file
(or by default the standard input) and writes an encoded version
to the standard output.
The encoding uses only printing
ASCII
characters and includes the
mode of the file and the operand
name
for use by
uudecode.
If
name
is
/dev/stdout
the result will be written to standard output. By default the standard
UU encoding format will be used. If the option
-m
is given on the command line
base64
encoding is used instead.
Uudecode
transforms
uuencoded
files
(or by default, the standard input) into the original form.
The resulting file is named
name
(or
outfile
if the -o option is given)
and will have the mode of the original file except that setuid
and execute bits are not retained. If
outfile
or
name
is /dev/stdout the result will be written to standard output.
Uudecode
ignores any leading and trailing lines. The program can automatically decide
which of the both supported encoding schemes are used.
EXAMPLES
The following example packages up a source tree, compresses it,
uuencodes it and mails it to a user on another system.
When
uudecode
is run on the target system, the file ``src_tree.tar.Z'' will be
created which may then be uncompressed and extracted into the original
tree.
tar cf - src_tree | compress |
uuencode src_tree.tar.Z | mail sys1!sys2!user
This implementation is compliant with P1003.2b/D11.
BUGS
If more than one file is given to
uudecode
and the -o option is given or more than one
name
in the encoded files are the same the result is probably not what is expected.
The encoded form of the file is expanded by 37% for UU encoding and by 35%
for base64 encoding (3 bytes become 4 plus control information).
