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uuencode(1) manual page
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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