UUEnview Manpage
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 elec
tronic 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
-u Chooses the uuencoding method, for compatibility
with uuencode (1).
-b Chooses the Base64 encoding method as specified by
the MIME standard.
-x Chooses the now obsolete xxencoding method.
-t Sends the file(s) as plain text.
-q Encodes the file(s) using quoted printable encod
ing.
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. Oth
erwise, 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 usu
ally piped to sendmail(8).
-p newsgroup
Posts the encoded file(s), each one probably split
into multiple parts, to the given newsgroup. Multi
ple newsgroups can be given as a quoted, comma-sep
arated list. The inews(1) program is invoked for
posting. You may have to set the NNTPSERVER enviro
ment 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.
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 cer
tain 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 unlim
ited 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 vari
able, 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, con
sult your system administrator. The program used for
posting a file can be set at runtime using the INEWS envi
ronment 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-com
pliant!
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.
SEE ALSO
uudeview(1), uuencode(1), uudecode(1), sendmail(8),
inews(1),
The uudeview homepage on the Web,
http://www.fpx.de/fp/Software/UUDeview/
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.)
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