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.\" Copyright (c) 1980 Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement
.\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
.\"
.\" @(#)uuencode.1c 1.1 94/10/31 SMI; from UCB 4.3 BSD
.TH UUENCODE 1C "23 November 1987"
.SH NAME
uuencode, uudecode \- encode a binary file, or decode its ASCII representation
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B uuencode
[
.I source-file
]
.I file-label
.LP
.B uudecode
[
.I encoded-file
]
.IX "uuencode command" "" "\fLuuencode\fP \(em encode binary file"
.IX "uudecode command" "" "\fLuudecode\fP \(em decode binary file"
.IX "encode binary file" "" "encode binary file \(em \fLuuencode\fP"
.IX "decode binary file" "" "decode binary file \(em \fLuudecode\fP"
.IX communications uuencode "" "\fLuuencode\fP \(em encode binary file"
.IX communications uudecode "" "\fLuudecode\fP \(em decode binary file"
.IX "binary file transmission" uuencode "" "\fLuuencode\fP \(em encode binary file"
.IX "binary file transmission" uudecode "" "\fLuudecode\fP \(em decode binary file"
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B uuencode
converts a binary file into an
.SM ASCII\s0-encoded
representation that can be sent using
.BR mail (1).
It encodes the contents of
.IR source-file ,
or the standard input if no
.I source-file
argument is given. The
.I file-label
argument is required. It is included in the encoded file's
header as the name of the file into which
.B uudecode
is to place the binary (decoded) data.
.B uuencode
also includes the ownership and permission modes of
.I source-file,
so that
.I file-label
is recreated with those same ownership and permission modes.
.LP
If the remote host is a
.SM UNIX
system with the
.BR sendmail (8)
mail-message delivery daemon, you can pipe the output of
.B uuencode
through
.BR mail (1)
to the recipient named
.B decode
on the remote host. This recipient is typically an alias for the
.B uudecode
program (see
.BR aliases (5)
for details), which allows a binary file to be
decoded (extracted) from a mail message automatically.
If this alias is absent on a particular host, the encoded
file can be mailed to a user, who can run it through
.B uudecode
manually.
.LP
.I uudecode
reads an
.IR encoded-file ,
strips off any leading and trailing lines
added by mailer programs, and recreates the original binary data
with the filename and the mode and owner specified in the header.
.LP
The encoded file is an ordinary
.SM ASCII
text file; it can be edited by any text editor. But it is best
only to change the mode or file-label in the header to avoid
corrupting the decoded binary.
.SH SEE\ ALSO
.BR mail (1),
.BR uucp (1C),
.BR uusend (1C),
.BR uux (1C),
.BR aliases (5),
.BR uuencode (5),
.BR sendmail (8)
.SH BUGS
The encoded file's size is expanded by 35% (3 bytes become 4, plus
control information), causing it to take longer to transmit than the
equivalent binary.
.LP
The user on the remote system who is invoking
.B uudecode
(typically
.BR uucp )
must have write permission on the file specified in the
.IR file-label .
.LP
Since both
.B uuencode
and
.B uudecode
run with user ID set to
.BR uucp ,
.B uudecode
can fail with ``permission denied'' when attempted in a directory that
does not have write permission allowed for ``other.''