mimencode(1)                                            mimencode(1)


       NAME
             mimencode - translate mail-oriented encoding formats

       SYNOPSIS
             mimencode [-u] [-b] [-q] [-p] [filename]

       DESCRIPTION
             The mimencode program is a format translator that 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.

             By default, mimencode reads from the standard input and sends
             a base64-encoded version of the input to standard output.

          Options
             mimencode uses the following command line options:

                   -b        tells mimencode to use "base64" encoding (not
                             necessary to specify since this is the
                             default).

                   -q        tells mimencode to use the "quoted-printable"
                             encoding instead of base64.

                   -u        tells mimencode to decode standard input
                             rather than encode it.

                   -p        tells mimencode to translate decoded CRLF
                             sequences into the local newline convention
                             during decoding and to do the reverse during
                             encoding.  This option is only meaningful when
                             -b (base64 encoding) is in effect.

                   filename  when given, tells mimencode to read input from
                             the named file rather than from standard
                             input.

       USAGE
             MIME encoding is used because binary data cannot be sent
             through the mail. The encodings understood by mimencode may be
             preferable to the use of the uuencode/uudecode programs.

             mimencode is intended to be a replacement for uuencode for
             mail and news use, primarily because uuencode uses characters
             that don't translate well across all mail gateways


                           Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc.               Page 1

      mimencode(1)                                            mimencode(1)


            (particularly ASCII <-> EBCDIC gateways).  Also, uuencode is
            not standard (there are several variants encoding and decoding
            in different and incompatible ways and with no standard on
            which to base an implementation).  Additionally, uuencode does
            not always work well in a pipe, although some variants have
            been modified to do so.

            mimencode implements the encodings which were defined for MIME
            as uuencode replacements and is expected to be more robust for
            email use.

      REFERENCES
            metamail(1), mailto(1)

      NOTICES
            Author is Nathaniel S. Borenstein, Bell Communications
            Research, Inc.  See copyright page for further information.































                          Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc.               Page 2