uuencode(1) BSD General Commands Manual uuencode(1)
NAME
uudecode, uuencode -- encode/decode a binary file
SYNOPSIS
uuencode [-m] [-o output_file] [file] name
uudecode [-cips] [file ...]
uudecode [-i] -o output_file [file]
DESCRIPTION
The uuencode and uudecode utilities are used to transmit binary files
over transmission mediums that do not support other than simple ASCII
data.
The uuencode utility reads file (or by default the standard input) and
writes an encoded version to the standard output, or output_file if one
has been specified. The encoding uses only printing ASCII characters and
includes the mode of the file and the operand name for use by uudecode.
The uudecode utility transforms uuencoded files (or by default, the stan-
dard input) into the original form. The resulting file is named either
name or (depending on options passed to uudecode) output_file and will
have the mode of the original file except that setuid and execute bits
are not retained. The uudecode utility ignores any leading and trailing
lines.
The following options are available for uuencode:
-m Use the Base64 method of encoding, rather than the traditional
uuencode algorithm.
-o output_file
Output to output_file instead of standard output.
The following options are available for uudecode:
-c Decode more than one uuencode'd file from file if possible.
-i Do not overwrite files.
-o output_file
Output to output_file instead of any pathname contained in the
input data.
-p Decode file and write output to standard output.
-s Do not strip output pathname to base filename. By default
uudecode deletes any prefix ending with the last slash '/' for
security purpose.
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
The following example unpack all uuencode'd files from your mailbox into
your current working directory.
uudecode -c < $MAIL
The following example extract a compress'ed tar archive from your mailbox
uudecode -o /dev/stdout < $MAIL | zcat | tar xfv -
LEGACY DESCRIPTION
In legacy operation, uudecode masks file modes with 0666, preventing the
creation of executable files.
uudecode cannot change the mode of a created file which is not owned by
the current user (unless that user is root). In legacy operation,
fchmod(2) allows the mode to be changed.
For more information about legacy mode, see compat(5).
SEE ALSO
basename(1), compress(1), mail(1), uucp(1), fchmod(2), uuencode(5)
BUGS
Files encoded using the traditional algorithm are expanded by 35% (3
bytes become 4, plus control information).
HISTORY
The uudecode and uuencode utilities appeared in 4.0BSD.
BSD January 27, 2002 BSD
Mac OS X 10.7 - Generated Fri Aug 19 06:07:46 CDT 2011