NAME

uuencode, uudecode − encode a binary file, or decode its ASCII representation

SYNOPSIS

uuencode [ source-file ] file-label

uudecode [ −p ] [ encoded-file ]

AVAILABILITY

SUNWesu

DESCRIPTION

uuencode converts a binary file into an ASCII-encoded representation that can be sent using mail(1).  It encodes the contents of source-file, or the standard input if no source-file argument is given.  The file-label argument is required.  The file-label 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 permission modes of source-file, (except setuid, setgid, and sticky-bits), so that file-label is recreated with those same permission modes. 

uudecode reads an encoded-file, strips off any leading and trailing lines added by mailer programs, and recreates the original binary data with the filename and the mode specified in the header.

The encoded file is an ordinary ASCII text file; it can be edited by any text editor.  But it is best only to change the mode or file-label in the header to avoid corrupting the decoded binary. 

OPTIONS

−p decode encoded-file and send it to standard output. This allows uudecode to be used in a pipeline. 

SEE ALSO

mail(1), uucp(1C), uux(1C)

NOTES

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 the file-label.

If you uuencode then uudecode a file in the same directory, you will overwrite the original file. 

SunOS 5.4  —  Last change: 7 Dec 1993