uudecode

A Unix program to convert the ASCII output of uuencode back to binary. See uuencode for details.

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UUcoding

A common method for transmitting non-text files via Internet email, which was originally designed for ASCII text. The UUencode utility encodes the files by converting 8-bit characters into 7-bit ASCII text, and the UUdecode utility decodes it back to its original format at the receiving end. Originating in the Unix community, UUcoding was one of the first methods for sending binary files as attached files over Internet email. Today, MIME is widely used. See BinHex, MIME and Wincode.

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References in periodicals archive

Some sites may have to process the received mail attachments with a uudecode utility to create an acceptable binary file readable by Acrobat[TM].

Update: availability of electronic MMWR on Internet

Among DOS and UNIX users, the standard ASCII encoding software is UUENCODE, and the standard decoder is UUDECODE. On Macintosh platforms, encoding and decoding are both handled by the application Binhex 4.0.

Electronic distribution of hypermedia on wide-area networking systems: an update

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