HP-UX Reference (11i v2 03/08) - 1 User Commands N-Z (vol 2)

uuencode(1) uuencode(1)

NAME

uuencode, uudecode - encode/decode a binary ﬁle for transmission by mailer

SYNOPSIS

uuencode [ source ] remotedest

uudecode [ ﬁle ]

DESCRIPTION

uuencode and uudecode can be used to send a binary ﬁle to another machine by means of such ser-

vices as elm(1), mailx(1), or uucp(1) (see elm(1), mailx(1), and uucp(1)).

uuencode takes the named source ﬁle (default standard input) and produces an encoded version on the

standard output. The encoding uses only printing

ASCII characters, includes the original mode of the

input ﬁle, and preserves the value of the remotedest argument which is the intended name for the ﬁle

when it is restored later on the remote system.

uudecode reads an encoded ﬁle, ignores any leading and trailing lines added by mailers, and recreates

the original ﬁle with the speciﬁed mode and name.

The encoded ﬁle is an ordinary

ASCII text ﬁle and can be edited with any text editor to change the mode

or remote name.

EXAMPLES

To encode and send a compiled program

foo to user friend:

uuencode foo foo | mailx -s ’new program’ friend

After receiving the mail message, user friend can decode the program by ﬁrst saving the message in a

ﬁle foo.mail and executing the command:

uudecode foo.mail

WARNINGS

The ﬁle is expanded by 35% (three bytes become four plus control information) causing it to take longer to

transmit.

The user on the remote system who is invoking

uudecode (often uucp) must have write permission for

the speciﬁed ﬁle.

If an encoded ﬁle has the same name as the destination name speciﬁed in it,

uudecode starts overwrit-

ing the encoded ﬁle before decoding is completed.