Java Glossary : UUENCODE

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UUENCODE

Non-Transparent channels don't simply pass all characters through unmolested. They treat some of the characters as control characters -- commands. In order to send arbitrary text down such channels, you need to convert the special characters into vanilla ones that can get through safely. One technique of converting a file into vanilla before sending is called UUENCODE, similar to BASE64. UUENCODE embeds a filename where BASE64 does not. The uuencode header looks like this:

begin 600 myfile.exe where the 600 represents the Unix attribute bits in octal. UUENCODE uses the 64 characters ! through ` where base64 uses the 64 characters A..Z, a..z, 0..9 and + and /. UUENCODE encodes a 1-byte length byte on the front of each line, where the length includes the length byte. The length byte itself too is uuencoded. Typically all lines of a uuencoded file but the last are the same length. The uuencode trailer looks like this:

end Uuencode does not have an RFC officially defining it. There are some variants out there to confuse. Sun has some unofficial support, the undocumented guts of a uuencode/decode called sun.misc.UUEncoder and sun.misc.UUDecoder

BASE64 ¤ MIME transparent

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