UUENCODE(1)                OpenBSD Reference Manual                UUENCODE(1)

NAME
     uuencode, uudecode - encode/decode a binary file



SYNOPSIS
     uuencode [file] name
     uudecode [-p] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
     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 en-
     coded 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 in-
     put) into the original form.  The resulting file is named name and will
     have the mode of the original file except that set-user-ID and execute
     bits are not retained.  If the -p option is specified, the output will
     instead be written to stdout.  uudecode ignores any leading and trailing
     lines.

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

DIAGNOSTICS
     The uudecode and uuencode utilities exit 0 on success or >0 if an error
     occurred.

SEE ALSO
     compress(1),  mail(1),  uucp(1),  uuencode(5)

STANDARDS
     The uudecode and uuencode utilities conform to IEEE Std1003.2-1992
     (``POSIX.2'').

HISTORY
     The uudecode and uuencode utilities appeared in 4.0BSD.

BUGS
     The encoded form of the file is expanded by 35% (3 bytes become 4 plus
     control information).

OpenBSD 2.6                      June 6, 1993                                1