UUENVIEW(1)

NAME
uuenview - a powerful encoder for binary files

SYNOPSIS
uuenview [-v] [-a] [-u|-x|-b] [-lines] [-o] [-od path]
[-m email] [-p newsgroup] [-s subject]
[file(s)]

DESCRIPTION
uuenview encodes a binary file into ASCII text for sending over non-8-bit electronic data channels, such as email or the usenet. uuenview is a superset of and fully backwards compatible with the standard uuencode(1) command, featuring more comfort and more flexibility.

Files encoded with uuenview are compatible with virtually all decoders, as long as the encoding method (see below) is supported by the remote side. If the remote side uses uudeview(1), there shouldn't be any problems at all.

If properly configured, uuenview can directly send the encoded data by email or to the usenet. These messages are wrapped into a proper MIME envelope, which is handy if the recipient uses MIME-compliant mail or news software.

OPTIONS

-v  Verbosely prints everything the program's trying to do.

-u  Chooses the uuencoding method. This is the default for compatibility with uuencode (1). This encoding scheme is to date widely accepted as being the standard.

-b  Chooses the Base64 encoding method as specified by the MIME standard. This scheme is expected to become the future standard. Use if the recipient uses MIME-compliant software (see note below).

-x  Chooses the now obsolete xxencoding method.

The -u, -b, -x options are mutually exclusive.

-lines
    Substituting lines with a number, sets the maximum number of encoded lines per part. The encoded data is automatically split into as many parts as required. Line counts less than 200 are ignored. The uuencoding and xxencoding methods encode 45k, and Base64 encodes 57k of data in 1000 lines. If this option is not specified, the default is unlimited lines per part, resulting in exactly one part.

-o  Specifies that output shall be written into files. These files will have the same base name as the source file and an extension of .001, .002 etc, depending on the number of parts required by the -lines option. The encoded files are written to the current directory.

-od path
    Same as '-o', but the encoded files are written to the given directory instead.

-m email
    Mails the encoded file(s), each one probably split into multiple parts, to the given email address. Multiple recipients can be given as a quoted, comma-separated list.

-p newsgroup
    Posts the encoded file(s), each one probably split into multiple parts, to the given newsgroup. Multiple newsgroups can be given as a quoted, comma-separated list. The inews(1) program is invoked for posting. You may have to set the NNTPSERVER enviroment variable to your news server.

-s subject
    This subject will be used when mailing or posting the file. Be careful to quote subjects of more than one word. The file name and part number is automatically appended to the subject line.

-a  Attaches files. This feature is expected to be used from shell scripts and the like. It causes an email message (or usenet posting) to be read from standard input. The files given on the command line are then "attached" to the message, which is converted to proper MIME multipart format. The result is written to the standard output except if either the -m or -p parameter is used (potentially overriding the Newsgroup or To selection from the message headers). Use Base64 when encoding attachments.

file(s)
    One or more filenames to be processed. Each file is encoded and then stored in a file, mailed and/or posted according to the -o, -m and -p options. If none of these options is given, the encoded file is sent to standard output. To encode a file from the standard input, use a single hyphen '-' and give a filename to be used by the encoded file as the next parameter.

NOTES
Reading from standard input and writing to standard output enforces certain limitations.

1.  Files read from standard input can only be used once, meaning that either none or exactly one of the -o, -m, -p options may be given.

2.  Output written to standard output cannot be split into multiple parts. In this case, the -lines option is ignored.

uuenview must be correctly configured at compile time in order to make automated mailing and posting work. If it doesn't, consult your system administrator. The program used for posting a file can be set at runtime using the INEWS environment variable. This setting overrides the compile-time configuration.

Base64 is not MIME. Base64 is the encoding specified by the MIME standard, but in order for a message to become a proper MIME message, a number of headers are required. uuenview produces these headers when mailing or posting, but not when writing to a local file, since in this case, the program does not have the necessary control over the headers. If you plainly include Base64 output into your messages, they are not MIME-compliant! Therefore, use uuencoding in this case.

If you rename, copy or link the program to uuencode, it may act as a smart replacement for the standard, accepting the same command-line syntax. This has not been well-tested yet.

EXAMPLES

uuenview -m 'root,fred@somewhere.com' uudeview.tgz
    Encodes the file uudeview.tgz and mails it to both your local system administrator and to your friend Fred at the Somewhere company.

If you give more than one filename on the command line, each file is usually handled separately. A workaround is to send them all as attachment to a single (or empty) mail:

uuenview -m root -b -a file1 file2 < /dev/null
    Creates an empty mail and attaches the two given files, encoded in Base64 format, and mails the result to your system administrator.

SEE ALSO
uudeview(1), uuencode(1), uudecode(1), mail(1), inews(1), mpack(1), metamail(1),
The uudeview homepage on the Web,
http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/~fp/uudeview/

BUGS

The program cannot detect error conditions when mailing or posting.

Attaching only works reliably if certain headers of the input message (for example Content-Type ) are not folded and shorter than 1024 characters.

It is not yet possible to encode into BinHex.