uuencode(1) [netbsd man page]
UUENCODE(1) BSD General Commands Manual UUENCODE(1) NAME
uuencode, uudecode -- encode/decode a binary file SYNOPSIS
uuencode [-m] [inputfile] outputname uudecode [-m | -p] [encoded-file ...] DESCRIPTION
uuencode and uudecode are used to transmit binary files over transmission mediums that do not support other than simple ASCII data. The following options are available: -m Use base64 encoding. uuencode reads inputfile (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 outputname for use by uudecode. uudecode transforms uuencoded files (or by default, the standard input) into the original form. The resulting file is named outputname as recorded in the encoded file, and will have the mode of the original file except that setuid and execute bits are not retained; if the -p option is specified, the data will be written to the standard output instead. uudecode ignores any leading and trailing lines. EXIT STATUS
The uudecode and uuencode utilities exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. EXAMPLES
The following example packages up a source tree, compresses it, uuencodes it and mails it to a user on another system. tar czf - src_tree | uuencode src_tree.tgz | mail user@example.com On the other system, if the user saves the mail to the file temp, the following example creates the file src_tree.tgz and extracts it to make a copy of the original tree. uudecode temp tar xzf src_tree.tgz SEE ALSO
gzip(1), mail(1), tar(1), uuencode(5) STANDARDS
The uudecode and uuencode utilities conform to IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 (``POSIX.2''). HISTORY
The uudecode and uuencode utilities appeared in 4.0BSD. BUGS
The encoded form of the file is expanded by 35% (3 bytes become 4 plus control information). BSD
November 30, 2008 BSD
Check Out this Related Man Page
uuencode(1) General Commands Manual uuencode(1) NAME
uuencode - encode a binary file uudecode - decode a file created by uuencode SYNOPSIS
uuencode [-m] [ file ] name uudecode [-o outfile] [ file ]... DESCRIPTION
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 print- ing 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 out- file 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 out- file 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 SEE ALSO
compress(1), mail(1), uucp(1), uuencode(5) STANDARDS
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). HISTORY
The uuencode command appeared in BSD 4.0. uuencode(1)