.\" $Id: uuenview.1,v 1.12 2002/03/06 13:57:36 fp Exp $ "
.TH UUENVIEW 1 "June 2001"
.SH NAME
uuenview \- a powerful encoder for binary files
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B "uuenview [options] \fIfile(s)\fP"
.br
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B uuenview
encodes a binary file into ASCII text for sending over non-8-bit
electronic data channels, such as electronic mail or the usenet.
.B uuenview
is a superset of and fully backwards compatible with the standard
.BR uuencode (1)
command, featuring more comfort and more flexibility.
.PP
Files encoded with
.B 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
.BR uudeview (1),
there shouldn't be any problems at all.
.PP
If properly configured,
.B uuenview
can directly send encoded files 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.
.SH OPTIONS
.SS ENCODING SELECTION
.TP
.B -b
Chooses the
.I Base64
encoding method as specified by the
.I MIME
standard.
.TP
.B -u
Chooses the
.I uuencoding
method, for compatibility with
.BR uuencode (1).
.TP
.B -y
Chooses the
.I yEncoding
method.
.TP
.B -x
Chooses the now obsolete
.I xxencoding
method.
.TP
.B -t
Sends the file(s) as plain text.
.TP
.B -q
Encodes the file(s) using quoted printable encoding.
.PP
These options are positional and affect the encoding of all remaining
files on the command line until changed.
.PP
When sending, posting or attaching files, the default is to use
Base64, resulting in MIME compliant messages. Otherwise, when encoding
to standard output or into a file, the default is to use uuencoding.
.SS TARGETS
.TP
.B -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
.B .001, .002
etc, depending on the number of parts required by the
.B \-lines
option. The encoded files are written to the current directory.
.TP
.BI -od " path"
Same as '-o', but the encoded files are written to the given
directory instead.
.TP
.BI -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. On Unix systems, mail is usually piped
to
.BR sendmail (8).
.TP
.BI -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
.BR inews (1)
program is invoked for posting. You may have to set the
.I NNTPSERVER
environment variable to your news server.
.TP
.B -a
Attaches files. This feature is expected to be used from shell scripts
and the like. In attach mode, a message is read from standard input,
complete with headers. The files given on the command line are then
"attached" to the message, which is converted, if necessary, to a
proper MIME multipart format. The
.B -a
option can be combined with
.B -m
or
.B -p
in order to directly mail or post the result. Else, the message,
complete with attachments, is written to standard output.

Uudeview is using a heuristic to determine where the provided message
headers end and the message body starts. If the first line does
.B not
start
with either
.I "From "
or some non-whitespace characters followed by a colon (e.g.
"X-header-blah:" or "Patch#1:") uuenview interprets the whole input as
message body. Else anything before the first empty line is interpreted as
headers and the rest of the provided input is taken as message body.
.PP
If no target option is given, the encoded data is printed to standard
output.
.SS HEADERS
When mailing or posting a file, it is possible to set certain headers.
Be careful to quote parameters that consist of more than one word.
.TP
.BI -s " subject"
Set the
.I Subject:
header line. The file name and part number are automatically
appended. Without this, a default subject header is generated.
.TP
.BI -f " from"
Set the
.I From:
header line.
.TP
.BI -r " reply"
Set the
.I Reply-To:
header line.
.SS OTHER
.TP
.B -v
Verbosely prints everything the program's trying to do.
.TP
.BI - lines
Substituting
.I 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.
.TP
.I file(s)
One or more filenames to be processed. To encode a file from the
standard input, use a single hyphen '\-' and give a filename to be
used for the encoded file as the next parameter.
.PP
Options may also be set in the $UUENVIEW environment variable, which
is read before processing the options on the command line.
.SH NOTES
.PP
Files read from standard input can only be used once, meaning that
at most one target option may be given.
.PP
Output written to standard output cannot be split into multiple parts.
In this case, the
.BI - lines
option is ignored.
.PP
.B uuenview
must be correctly configured at compile time in order for mailing and
posting to work. If it doesn't, consult your system administrator.
The program used for posting a file can be set at runtime using the
.I INEWS
environment variable. This setting overrides the compile-time configuration.
.PP
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.
.B uuenview
produces these headers when mailing or posting, but not when writing to
a file. In this case,
.B uuenview
does not have any control over the headers. If you include Base64
output into your messages, they are
.B not
MIME-compliant!
.PP
If you rename, copy or link the program to
.BR uuencode ,
it may act as a smart replacement for the standard, accepting the same
command-line syntax. This has not been well-tested yet.
.SH EXAMPLES
.TP
.B uuenview -m 'root,fred@somewhere.com' uudeview.tgz
Encodes the file
.I uudeview.tgz
and mails it to both your local system administrator and to your friend
Fred at the Somewhere company.
.PP
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:
.TP
.B 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.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR uudeview (1),
.BR uuencode (1),
.BR uudecode (1),
.BR sendmail (8),
.BR inews (1).
.PD 0
.PP
The
.B uudeview
homepage on the Web, 
.PD 0
.PP
http://www.fpx.de/fp/Software/UUDeview/
.PD
.SH BUGS
.PP
The program does not detect error conditions when mailing or posting.
.PP
Attaching only works reliably if certain headers of the input message
(for example Content-Type) are not folded and shorter than 1024
characters.
.PP
It is not possible to encode into BinHex.
.PP
The program will quite likely fail to handle binary data as input for
plain text or quoted-printable attachments. On plain text attachments,
the line length (must be less than 998 characters according to MIME)
is not enforced.
.PP
It is not possible to set the "charset" value of plain text
attachments.
.PP
It is not possible to set the content type value of attachments.
.PP
.BR sendmail (8)
stops reading upon a line consisting only of a single dot.
.I uudeview
does not check plain text input files against this condition. (The
problem is worked around when using quoted-printable, and does not
exist with the other encodings.)