1UUENVIEW(1) General Commands Manual UUENVIEW(1)
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6 uuenview - a powerful encoder for binary files
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9 uuenview [options] file(s)
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12 uuenview encodes a binary file into ASCII text for sending over
13 non-8-bit electronic data channels, such as electronic mail or the
14 usenet. uuenview is a superset of and fully backwards compatible with
15 the standard uuencode(1) command, featuring more comfort and more flex‐
16 ibility.
17 Files encoded with uuenview are compatible with virtually all decoders,
19 as long as the encoding method (see below) is supported by the remote
20 side. If the remote side uses uudeview(1), there shouldn't be any prob‐
21 lems at all.
22 If properly configured, uuenview can directly send encoded files by
24 email or to the usenet. These messages are wrapped into a proper MIME
25 envelope, which is handy if the recipient uses MIME-compliant mail or
26 news software.
27
29 ENCODING SELECTION
30 -b Chooses the Base64 encoding method as specified by the MIME
31 standard.
32 -u Chooses the uuencoding method, for compatibility with uuen‐
34 code(1).
35 -y Chooses the yEncoding method.
37 -x Chooses the now obsolete xxencoding method.
39 -t Sends the file(s) as plain text.
41 -q Encodes the file(s) using quoted printable encoding.
43 These options are positional and affect the encoding of all remaining
45 files on the command line until changed.
46 When sending, posting or attaching files, the default is to use Base64,
48 resulting in MIME compliant messages. Otherwise, when encoding to stan‐
49 dard output or into a file, the default is to use uuencoding.
50 TARGETS
52 -o Specifies that output shall be written into files. These files
53 will have the same base name as the source file and an extension
54 of .001, .002 etc, depending on the number of parts required by
55 the -lines option. The encoded files are written to the current
56 directory.
57 -od path
59 Same as '-o', but the encoded files are written to the given
60 directory instead.
61 -m email
63 Mails the encoded file(s), each one probably split into multiple
64 parts, to the given email address. Multiple recipients can be
65 given as a quoted, comma-separated list. On Unix systems, mail
66 is usually piped to sendmail(8).
67 -p newsgroup
69 Posts the encoded file(s), each one probably split into multiple
70 parts, to the given newsgroup. Multiple newsgroups can be given
71 as a quoted, comma-separated list. The inews(1) program is
72 invoked for posting. You may have to set the NNTPSERVER enviro‐
73 ment variable to your news server.
74 -a Attaches files. This feature is expected to be used from shell
76 scripts and the like. In attach mode, a message is read from
77 standard input, complete with headers. The files given on the
78 command line are then "attached" to the message, which is con‐
79 verted, if necessary, to a proper MIME multipart format. The -a
80 option can be combined with -m or -p in order to directly mail
81 or post the result. Else, the message, complete with attach‐
82 ments, is written to standard output.
83 If no target option is given, the encoded data is printed to standard
85 output.
86 HEADERS
88 When mailing or posting a file, it is possible to set certain headers.
89 Be careful to quote parameters that consist of more than one word.
90 -s subject
92 Set the Subject: header line. The file name and part number are
93 automatically appended. Without this, a default subject header
94 is generated.
95 -f from
97 Set the From: header line.
98 -r reply
100 Set the Reply-To: header line.
101 OTHER
103 -v Verbosely prints everything the program's trying to do.
104 -lines Substituting lines with a number, sets the maximum number of
106 encoded lines per part. The encoded data is automatically split
107 into as many parts as required. Line counts less than 200 are
108 ignored. The uuencoding and xxencoding methods encode 45k, and
109 Base64 encodes 57k of data in 1000 lines. If this option is not
110 specified, the default is unlimited lines per part, resulting in
111 exactly one part.
112 file(s)
114 One or more filenames to be processed. To encode a file from the
115 standard input, use a single hyphen '-' and give a filename to
116 be used for the encoded file as the next parameter.
117 Options may also be set in the $UUENVIEW environment variable, which is
119 read before processing the options on the command line.
120
122 Files read from standard input can only be used once, meaning that at
123 most one target option may be given.
124 Output written to standard output cannot be split into multiple parts.
126 In this case, the -lines option is ignored.
127 uuenview must be correctly configured at compile time in order for
129 mailing and posting to work. If it doesn't, consult your system admin‐
130 istrator. The program used for posting a file can be set at runtime
131 using the INEWS environment variable. This setting overrides the com‐
132 pile-time configuration.
133 Base64 is not MIME. Base64 is the encoding specified by the MIME stan‐
135 dard, but in order for a message to become a proper MIME message, a
136 number of headers are required. uuenview produces these headers when
137 mailing or posting, but not when writing to a file. In this case, uuen‐
138 view does not have any control over the headers. If you include Base64
139 output into your messages, they are not MIME-compliant!
140 If you rename, copy or link the program to uuencode, it may act as a
142 smart replacement for the standard, accepting the same command-line
143 syntax. This has not been well-tested yet.
144
146 uuenview -m 'root,fred@somewhere.com' uudeview.tgz
147 Encodes the file uudeview.tgz and mails it to both your local
148 system administrator and to your friend Fred at the Somewhere
149 company.
150 If you give more than one filename on the command line, each file is
152 usually handled separately. A workaround is to send them all as attach‐
153 ment to a single (or empty) mail:
154 uuenview -m root -b -a file1 file2 < /dev/null
156 Creates an empty mail and attaches the two given files, encoded
157 in Base64 format, and mails the result to your system adminis‐
158 trator.
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161 uudeview(1), uuencode(1), uudecode(1), sendmail(8), inews(1).
162 The uudeview homepage on the Web,
163 http://www.fpx.de/fp/Software/UUDeview/
164
166 The program does not detect error conditions when mailing or posting.
167 Attaching only works reliably if certain headers of the input message
169 (for example Content-Type) are not folded and shorter than 1024 charac‐
170 ters.
171 It is not possible to encode into BinHex.
173 The program will quite likely fail to handle binary data as input for
175 plain text or quoted-printable attachments. On plain text attachments,
176 the line length (must be less than 998 characters according to MIME) is
177 not enforced.
178 It is not possible to set the "charset" value of plain text attach‐
180 ments.
181 It is not possible to set the content type value of attachments.
183 sendmail(8) stops reading upon a line consisting only of a single dot.
185 uudeview does not check plain text input files against this condition.
186 (The problem is worked around when using quoted-printable, and does not
187 exist with the other encodings.)
188 June 2001 UUENVIEW(1)