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MMENCODE(1) General Commands Manual MMENCODE(1) NAME mmencode - Translate to and from mail-oriented encoding formats (Same program also installed as "mimencode".) SYNOPSIS mmencode[-u] [-b] [-q] [-p] [file name] [-o outputfile] DESCRIPTION The mmencode program simply converts a byte stream into (or out of) one of the standard mail encoding formats defined by MIME, the proposed standard for internet multimedia mail formats. Such an encoding is necessary because binary data cannot be sent through the mail. The en- codings understood by mmencode are preferable to the use of the uuen- code/uudecode programs, for use in mail, in several respects that were important to the authors of MIME. By default, mmencode reads standard input, and sends a "base64" encoded version of the input to standard output. The (really not necessary) "-b" option tells mmencode to use the "base64" encoding. The "-q" option tells mmencode to use the "quoted-printable" encoding instead of base64. The "-u" option tells mmencode to decode the standard input rather than encode it. The "-p" option tells mmencode to translate decoded CRLF sequences into the local newline convention during decoding and to do the reverse dur- ing encoding. This option is only meaningful when -b (base64 encod- ing) is in effect. If a file name argument is given, input is read from that file rather than from standard input. The "-o" option, which must be followed by a file name, sends output to the named file rather than to standard output. RATIONALE Mmencode is intended to be a replacement for uuencode for mail and news use. The reason is simple: uuencode doesn't work very well in a num- ber of circumstances and ways. In particular, uuencode uses characters that don't translate well across all mail gateways (particularly ASCII <-> EBCDIC gateways). Also, uuencode is not standard -- there are sev- eral variants floating around, encoding and decoding things in differ- ent and incompatible ways, with no "standard" on which to base an im- plementation. Finally, uuencode does not generally work well in a pipe, although some variants have been modified to do so. Mmencode im- plements the encodings which were defined for MIME as uuencode replace- ments, and should be considerably more robust for email use. SEE ALSO metamail(1), mailto(1) COPYRIGHT Copyright (c) 1991 Bell Communications Research, Inc. (Bellcore) Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this material for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies, and that the name of Bellcore not be used in advertising or publicity per- taining to this material without the specific, prior written permission of an authorized representative of Bellcore. BELLCORE MAKES NO REPRE- SENTATIONS ABOUT THE ACCURACY OR SUITABILITY OF THIS MATERIAL FOR ANY PURPOSE. IT IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WAR- RANTIES. AUTHOR Nathaniel S. Borenstein Bellcore Prototype Release 1 MMENCODE(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RATIONALE | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT | AUTHOR
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