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uuencode - encode a binary file
uudecode
- decode a file created by uuencode
uuencode [ file ] name
uudecode
[ file ]...
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 printing ASCII characters
and includes the mode of the file and the operand name for use by uudecode
.
Uudecode transforms uuencoded files (or by default, the standard input)
into the original form. The resulting file is named name and will have the
mode of the original file except that setuid and execute bits are not retained.
Uudecode ignores any leading and trailing lines.
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
compress(1)
, mail(1)
, uucp(1)
, uuencode(5)
The encoded form of the file is expanded by 35% (3 bytes become 4 plus
control information).
The uuencode command appeared in BSD 4.0.
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