Ubuntu Manpage: uuenview - a powerful encoder for binary files

NAME

       uuenview - a powerful encoder for binary files

SYNOPSIS

       uuenview [options] file(s)

DESCRIPTION

       uuenview  encodes a binary file into ASCII text for sending over non-8-bit electronic data channels, such
       as electronic mail or the usenet.  uuenview is a superset of and  fully  backwards  compatible  with  the
       standard uuencode(1) command, featuring more comfort and more flexibility.

       Files  encoded  with  uuenview are compatible with virtually all decoders, as long as the encoding method
       (see below) is supported by the remote side. If the remote side uses uudeview(1), there shouldn't be  any
       problems at all.

       If  properly  configured,  uuenview  can  directly  send  encoded  files by email or to the usenet. These
       messages are wrapped into a proper MIME envelope, which is handy if  the  recipient  uses  MIME-compliant
       mail or news software.

OPTIONS

ENCODING SELECTION
-b Chooses the Base64 encoding method as specified by the MIME standard.

-u Chooses the uuencoding method, for compatibility with uuencode(1).

-y Chooses the yEncoding method.

-x Chooses the now obsolete xxencoding method.

-t Sends the file(s) as plain text.

-q Encodes the file(s) using quoted printable encoding.

These options are positional and affect the encoding of all remaining files on the command line until
changed.

When sending, posting or attaching files, the default is to use Base64, resulting in MIME compliant
messages. Otherwise, when encoding to standard output or into a file, the default is to use uuencoding.

TARGETS
-o Specifies that output shall be written into files. These files will have the same base name as the
source file and an extension of .001, .002 etc, depending on the number of parts required by the
-lines option. The encoded files are written to the current directory.

-od path
Same as '-o', but the encoded files are written to the given directory instead.

-m email
Mails the encoded file(s), each one probably split into multiple parts, to the given email
address. Multiple recipients can be given as a quoted, comma-separated list. On Unix systems, mail
is usually piped to sendmail(8).

-p newsgroup
Posts the encoded file(s), each one probably split into multiple parts, to the given newsgroup.
Multiple newsgroups can be given as a quoted, comma-separated list. The inews(1) program is
invoked for posting. You may have to set the NNTPSERVER environment variable to your news server.

-a Attaches files. This feature is expected to be used from shell scripts and the like. In attach
mode, a message is read from standard input, complete with headers. The files given on the command
line are then "attached" to the message, which is converted, if necessary, to a proper MIME
multipart format. The -a option can be combined with -m or -p in order to directly mail or post
the result. Else, the message, complete with attachments, is written to standard output.

Uudeview is using a heuristic to determine where the provided message headers end and the message
body starts. If the first line does not start with either From or some non-whitespace characters
followed by a colon (e.g. "X-header-blah:" or "Patch#1:") uuenview interprets the whole input as
message body. Else anything before the first empty line is interpreted as headers and the rest of
the provided input is taken as message body.

If no target option is given, the encoded data is printed to standard output.

HEADERS
When mailing or posting a file, it is possible to set certain headers. Be careful to quote parameters
that consist of more than one word.

-s subject
Set the Subject: header line. The file name and part number are automatically appended. Without
this, a default subject header is generated.

-f from
Set the From: header line.

-r reply
Set the Reply-To: header line.

OTHER
-v Verbosely prints everything the program's trying to do.

-lines Substituting lines with a number, sets the maximum number of encoded lines per part. The encoded
data is automatically split into as many parts as required. Line counts less than 200 are ignored.
The uuencoding and xxencoding methods encode 45k, and Base64 encodes 57k of data in 1000 lines. If
this option is not specified, the default is unlimited lines per part, resulting in exactly one
part.

file(s)
One or more filenames to be processed. To encode a file from the standard input, use a single
hyphen '-' and give a filename to be used for the encoded file as the next parameter.

Options may also be set in the $UUENVIEW environment variable, which is read before processing the
options on the command line.

NOTES

       Files read from standard input can only be used once, meaning that at  most  one  target  option  may  be
       given.

       Output  written  to standard output cannot be split into multiple parts.  In this case, the -lines option
       is ignored.

       uuenview must be correctly configured at compile time in order for mailing and posting  to  work.  If  it
       doesn't,  consult  your  system administrator.  The program used for posting a file can be set at runtime
       using the INEWS environment variable. This setting overrides the compile-time configuration.

       Base64 is not MIME. Base64 is the encoding specified by the MIME standard, but in order for a message  to
       become  a  proper  MIME  message, a number of headers are required.  uuenview produces these headers when
       mailing or posting, but not when writing to a file. In this case, uuenview does not have any control over
       the headers. If you include Base64 output into your messages, they are not MIME-compliant!

       If you rename, copy or link the program to uuencode, it may act as a smart replacement for the  standard,
       accepting the same command-line syntax. This has not been well-tested yet.

EXAMPLES

       uuenview -m 'root,fred@somewhere.com' uudeview.tgz
              Encodes  the  file  uudeview.tgz  and mails it to both your local system administrator and to your
              friend Fred at the Somewhere company.

       If you give more than one filename on the command line,  each  file  is  usually  handled  separately.  A
       workaround is to send them all as attachment to a single (or empty) mail:

       uuenview -m root -b -a file1 file2 < /dev/null
              Creates  an  empty  mail and attaches the two given files, encoded in Base64 format, and mails the
              result to your system administrator.

BUGS

       The program does not detect error conditions when mailing or posting.

       Attaching only works reliably if certain headers of the input message (for example Content-Type) are  not
       folded and shorter than 1024 characters.

       It is not possible to encode into BinHex.

       The  program  will  quite  likely  fail to handle binary data as input for plain text or quoted-printable
       attachments. On plain text attachments, the line length (must be less than 998  characters  according  to
       MIME) is not enforced.

       It is not possible to set the "charset" value of plain text attachments.

       It is not possible to set the content type value of attachments.

       sendmail(8)  stops  reading  upon  a line consisting only of a single dot.  uudeview does not check plain
       text input files against this condition. (The problem is worked around when using  quoted-printable,  and
       does not exist with the other encodings.)

                                                    June 2001                                        UUENVIEW(1)