uuencode(1bnu)
uuencode, uudecode --
encode a binary file, or decode its ASCII representation
Synopsis
uuencode [source_file] file_label
uudecode [encoded_file]
Description
The uuencode command converts a binary file into an ASCII-encoded
representation that can be sent using
mail(1).
The uudecode command reads encoded_file,
strips off any leading and trailing lines
added by mailer programs, and recreates the original binary data
with the filename, mode and owner specified in the header.
Files
/usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES/uxbnu-
language-specific message file (see LANG on
environ(5)).
Usage
uuencode encodes the contents of source_file,
or the standard input if no source_file argument is given.
The file_label argument is required:
it is included in the encoded file's
header as the name of the file into which uudecode
is to place the binary (decoded) data.
uuencode also includes the ownership and permission modes of
source_file, so that the file specified by file_label
is recreated with those same ownership and permission modes.
The encoded file is an ordinary
ASCII
text file; it can be edited by any text editor.
Only the mode or file label
in the header should be changed, to avoid corrupting the decoded binary.
The encoded file's size is expanded by 35% (3 bytes become 4, plus
control information), causing it to take longer to transmit than the
equivalent binary.
The user on the remote system who is invoking
uudecode (typically uucp)
must have write permission on the file specified in
file_label.
Since both uuencode and uudecode
run with user
ID
set to uucp,
uudecode can fail with permission denied
when attempted in a directory that
does not have write permission allowed for other.
Examples
The following command line reads the file in.cpio.Z,
encodes its contents,
adds a header containing the file label ``out.cpio.Z'',
and places the output in the file out.cpio.Z.uu:
uuencode in.cpio.Z out.cpio.Z > out.cpio.Z.uu
The following command line reads the file out.cpio.Z.uu,
decodes its contents,
and places the output in the file out.cpio.Z:
uudecode out.cpio.Z.uu
References
environ(5),
mail(1),
uucp(1bnu),
uux(1bnu),
uuencode(4bnu)
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 25 April 2004