Ubuntu Manpage: UUDeview - a powerful decoder for binary files

NAME

       UUDeview - a powerful decoder for binary files

SYNOPSIS

       uudeview [options] [@file] file(s)

DESCRIPTION

       UUDeview  is  a  smart  decoder for attachments that you have received in encoded form via
       electronic mail or from the usenet. It is similar to the standard uudecode(1) command, yet
       with  more comfort and flexibility.  UUDeview supports the uuencoding, xxencoding, Base64,
       yEncoding and BinHex encoding methods, and is able to handle split-files (which have  been
       sent  in  multiple  parts) as well as multiple files at once, thus greatly simplifying the
       decoding process. Usually, you will not have to manually edit files to  prepare  them  for
       decoding.

       After  invoking  uudeview,  it  will  scan all given files for encoded data, sort them and
       their parts and then present you with the list of files that seem like they can be decoded
       properly. You can then pick files individually for decoding.

OPTIONS

BEHAVIOR
-i Disables interactivity. After scanning the files and sorting everything out, the
program will not promt you for whether a file shall be decoded or not, but batch-
decodes all available files. This is the default when reading from standard input.

-a Autorename option. If a target file already exists, and this option is given, a dot
and a unique sequence number is appended to the file name. I.e., foo.gif becomes
foo.gif.1 if decoded a second time.

+a An alternative incarnation of autorename. If a target file already exists, an
underscore and a unique sequence number is inserted into the filename before the
first dot, i.e., foo.gif becomes foo_1.gif.

-o Gives the OK to overwrite existing files when decoding. In interactive mode, the
default is to prompt the user whether to overwrite, rename or skip the file. This
option takes precedence over -a. In non-interactive mode (using -f ), the default
is to overwrite files without asking.

+o Says it's not OK to overwrite files. This is useful in non-interactive mode, so
that existing files are untouched. This has lesser precedence than -a.

-c Autoclear. Remove all input files that were successfully decoded. Use with care!
UUDeview only checks if any data was decoded from an input file, but does not care
about any other contents of that input file, or whether a file also held an
incomplete attachment.

-p path
Sets the path where decoded files shall be written to. This must be a valid
pathname, or you'll get errors when trying to decode anything. Defaults to the
current working directory.

-m Ignore file mode. Uuencoded and xxencoded files have the original file permissions
stored on the begin line. Unless this option is given, UUDeview will restore them
without checking if they are sensible. With this option, the permissions are reset
to a default of 0666.

TWEAKING
-z Enforces stricter MIME adherance. Normally, the program tries to find encoded data
even in "text/plain" plaintext parts of MIME messages. With this option given,
UUDeview will limit this capability, and will not accept apparently incomplete
encoded messages (for example, seemingly uuencoded data without begin or end
lines). You can tighten this option even more by using it twice, or by using -z2.
Then, UUDeview will not check plaintext sections of MIME messages for encoded data
at all and behave fully MIME-compliant. Neither option affects the behavior on
non-MIME input files. This option needs a better name, but I'm slowly running out
of option letters.

-f Uses fast mode for file scanning. The program assumes that each input file holds at
most one part, which is usually true for files in a news spool directory. This
option breaks decoding of input files with multiple articles. Also, certain sanity
checks are disabled, probably causing erroneous files to be presented for decoding.
Sometimes you'll get error messages when decoding, sometimes you'll just receive
invalid files. Don't use -f if you can't live with these problems.

-r Ignore reply messages, i.e. all messages whose subject starts with Re:

-t Use plaintext messages. Usually, UUDeview only presents encoded data for decoding.
Plaintext messages are only shown if they have an associated file name. With this
option set, unnamed text parts from MIME messages and non-encoded messages are also
offered. Unnamed messages are assigned a unique name in the form of a sequential
four-digit number.

-d Sets the program into desperate mode. It will then offer you to decode incomplete
files. This is useful if you are missing the last part of a 50-parts posting, but
in most cases the desperately-decoded files will simply be corrupt and unusable.
The degree of usefulness of an incomplete file depends on the file type.

-b This changes UUDeview's "bracket policy." UUDeview looks at a message's subject
line, and reads numbers in brackets as the part number, as in (3/7), which is read
as the third message in a series of seven. By default, numbers in parentheses ()
are preferred over numbers in brackets []. You can change this using either -b or,
for clarity -b[].

-s Read "minus smartness". This option turns off automatic part number detection from
the subject line. Try this option if UUDeview fails to parse the subject line
correctly and makes errors at guessing part numbers, resulting in incorrect
ordering of the parts. With this option, parts are always put together sequentially
(so the parts must be correctly ordered in the input file). Also, with this option,
the program cannot detect that parts are missing. Note: The correct part number
found in proper MIME files is still evaluated. If this option is given twice, the
subject itself is ignored, too, and won't be used to group parts. Use if the
messages that the parts come delivered in have different subject lines.

OTHER OPTIONS
-q (Quiet) Disables verbosity. Normally, the program prints some status messages while
reading the input files, which can be very helpful if something should go wrong.
Use if these messages disturb you. Disables progress bars. See -n option.

-v (disables Verbosity) Disables verbose messages, i.e. notes are not displayed, but
does not remove warnings and errors. Is not as quiet as the -q (Quiet) option.

-n No progress bars. Normally, UUDeview prints ASCII bars crawling up to 100 percent,
but does not check if your terminal is capable of displaying them. Use this switch
if your terminal isn't, or if you find the bars annoying.

+e exts
Selects only the files with the given extensions for decoding, others will be
ignored. +e .gif.jpg would decode all gif and jpeg files, but not tif or other
files. The list of extensions works case-insensitive.

-e exts
The reverse of the above.

You will experience unwanted results if you try to mix +e and -e options on the command
line.

INPUT OPTIONS
file(s)
The files to be scanned for encoded files. You can also give a single hyphen ´-´ to
read from standard input. Any number of files may be given, but there is usually a
limitation of 128 options imposed by the shell. If you are composing the list of
files with wildcards, make sure you don't accidentally feed the program with binary
files. This will result in undefined behaviour.

@file Makes UUDeview read further options from the file. Each line of the file must hold
exactly one option. The file is erased after the program finishes. This feature may
be used to specify an unlimited number of files to be scanned. Combined with the
powers of find(1), entire directory trees (like the news spool directory) can be
processed.

Options may also be set in the $UUDEVIEW environment variable, which is read before
processing the options on the command line.

DECODING

After all input files have been scanned, you are asked for each file what do do with it.
Of course, the usual answer is to decode it, but there are other possibilities. You can
use the following commands (each command is a single letter):

d (D)ecode the file and write the decoded file to disk, with the given name.

y (Y)es does the same as (d).

x E(x)tract also decodes the file.

a Decodes all remaining files without prompting.

n Skips this file without decoding it.

b Steps back to the previous file.

r Rename. You can choose a different name for the file in order to save it under this
new name.

p Set the path where decoded files shall be written to. This path can also be set
with the -p command line option.

i Displays info about the file, if present. If a multipart posting had a zeroeth
part, it is printed, otherwise the first part up to the encoded data is printed.

e Execute a command. You can enter any arbitrary command, possibly using the current
file as an argument. All dollar signs '$' in this command line are replaced with
the filename of the current file (speaking correctly, the name of a temporary
file). You should not background processes using this temporary file, as programs
might get confused if their input file suddenly disappears.

l List a file. Use this command only if you know that the file in question is a
textfile, otherwise, you'll get a load of junk.

q Quits the program immediately.

? Prints a short description of all these commands.

If you don't enter a command and simply hit return at the prompt, the default command,
decoding the file, is used.

RUNTIME MESSGAGES

       In  verbose  mode  (that is, if you didn't disable verbosity with the -v option), progress
       messages will appear.  They are extremely helpful in tracing what the  program  does,  and
       can  be used to figure out the reason why files cannot be decoded, if you understand them.
       This section explains how to interpret them.  Understanding this section is not  essential
       to operate the program.

       First,  there  are  "Loading"  messages,  which  begin with the string "Loaded". Each line
       should feature the following items:

       Source File
              The first item is the source file from which a part was loaded. Many parts  can  be
              detected within a single file.

       Subject Line
              The complete subject is reproduced in single quotes.

       Identifier
              The  program derives a unique identification for this thread from the subject line,
              for grouping articles that look like they belong to the same file.  The  result  of
              this algorithm is presented in braces.

       Filename
              If  a filename was detected on the subject line or within the data (for example, on
              a begin line, or as part of the Content-Type information).

       Part Number
              The part number derived from the subject line, or, in the case  of  properly  MIME-
              formatted messages, from the "part" information.

       Begin/End
              If a "begin" or "end" token was detected, it is printed here.

       Encoding Type
              If  encoded data was detected within this part, either "UUdata", "Base64", "XXdata"
              or "Binhex" is printed here.

       More messages are printed after scanning has completed. A single line will be printed  for
       each  group  of  articles.  The contents of this line are best understood by looking at an
       example. Here is one:

       Found 'mailfile.gz' State 16 UUData Parts begin 1 2 3 4 5 end 6 OK

       This indicates that the file mailfile.gz has been found. The file was uuencoded ("UUData")
       and  consists  of  6  parts.  The "begin" token was found in the first part, and the "end"
       token was found in the sixth part. Because it looks like everything's there, this file  is
       tagged as being "OK". The State is a set of bits, where the following values may be or'ed:

       1      Missing Part

       2      No Begin

       4      No End

       8      No encoded data found.

       16     File looks Ok

       32     An error occured during decoding of the file.

       64     File was successfully decoded.

NOTES

Because the program cannot receive terminal input when a file is being read from standard
input, interactivity is automatically disabled in this case.

UUDeview is aware of MIME messages, but normally ignores strict MIME compliance in favor
of finding unproperly encoded data within them, e.g. to succeed when individual parts of a
uuencoded file have been sent with a MIME mailer as MIME messages. For that, it subjects
all "text/plain" parts of a message to encoding detection. You can use the -z option (see
above) for more strict RFC2045 compliance.

The scanner tends to ignore short Base64 data (less than four lines) outside of MIME
messages. Some checks for this condition are used in desperate mode, but they may cause
misdetection of encoded data, resulting in some invalid files.

Files are always decoded into a temporary file first, then this file is copied to the
final location. This is to prevent accidentally overwriting existing files with data that
turns out too late to be undecodeable. Thus be careful to have twice the necessary space
available. Also, when reading from standard input, all the data is dumped to a temporary
file before starting the usual scanning process on that file.

uudeview tries to derive all necessary information from the Subject: line if present. If
it holds garbage, or if the program fails to find a unique identification and the part
number there, uudeview might still be able to decode the file using other heuristics, but
you'll need major luck then.
Yet this is only a concern with split-files. If all encoded files only consist of single
parts, don't worry.

If you rename, copy or link the program to uudecode, it may act as a smart replacement for
the standard, accepting the same command-line options. This has not been well-tested yet.

BUGS

       To read a file whose name starts with a hyphen '-', prepend a path name, for example './'.

       The checksums found in BinHex data are ignored.

       The  program cannot fully handle partial multipart messages (MIME-style multipart messages
       split over several mail messages). The individual parts are recognized  and  concatenated,
       and the embedded multipart message is "decoded" into a plain-text file, which must then be
       fed again to uudeview.  Don't worry, these kinds of messages are rare.

       UUDeview cannot decipher RFC 1522 headers.

                                            June 2001                                 UUDEVIEW(1)