TTTLEH5%NEUVM1.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA (07/21/86)
Hi Cpm people. I got the uuencode/uudecode files some days ago, this is really what we need. BUT because of all these networks, where some of the gateways change some of the special characters (like the ARPANET - BITNET gateway), one can't trust all the special characters made by uuencode. So this have to be changed. And the problem is to choose 64 chracters, which does not changed when ported from network to network. So I took these: ':', '0'..'9', 'A'..'Z', 'a'..'z', '.' eg. ':', all digits, all upper and lower case letters, '.', hoping that they will be useable. So if we can use this instead of the UUENCODE/UU- DECODE there is a chance of making the stuff you send useable to BITNET users too. Or at least use it when sending binfiles to the Info-Cpm list. So far I am working on the encoding part of the program. I have used the code from UUENCODE/UUDECODE as inspiration, but started over because I did not like the coding style of them. And I will probaly start on the decoding part one of the next days. So within a week or two I should have working and testing Pascal programs finished. But I do not know when I can mail them to the list. That may take some time. But when done the .COM file should be coded in some kind of HEX format, so all can download them without problems. This is true bootstraping. What I want is to hear what you mean about this. Comments and ideas are very welcome. Hope that you like it and that I did not leave too much out when explaining my ideas. Kind regrads from Copenhagen -- Denmark. Klaus Elmquist Nielsen BITNET: TTTLEH5 at NEUVM1 NEUKLAUS at NEUVM1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To explain how UUENCODE works, just try to look at the binary file as one long bitstring. If one then take 6 bit at a time, this gives you a sequence of numbers in the range 0..63 . And since it is possible to find 64 independent characters, this give you a sequence of chars, or a text file. Organising this in lines with control info like line length, header and terminater gives you a useable fileformat. UUDECODE do the work in the reverse order, eg make a binary file from the ascii file from UUENCODE.
TTTLEH5%NEUVM1.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA (07/22/86)
* I got some strange msg's from info-cpm @ amsaa . arpa , * so I resend this letter. Hi Cpm people. I got the uuencode/uudecode files some days ago, this is really what we need. BUT because of all these networks, where some of the gateways change some of the special characters (like the ARPANET - BITNET gateway), one can't trust all the special characters made by uuencode. So this have to be changed. And the problem is to choose 64 chracters, which does not changed when ported from network to network. So I took these: ':', '0'..'9', 'A'..'Z', 'a'..'z', '.' eg. ':', all digits, all upper and lower case letters, '.', hoping that they will be useable. So if we can use this instead of the UUENCODE/UU- DECODE there is a chance of making the stuff you send useable to BITNET users too. Or at least use it when sending binfiles to the Info-Cpm list. So far I am working on the encoding part of the program. I have used the code from UUENCODE/UUDECODE as inspiration, but started over because I did not like the coding style of them. And I will probaly start on the decoding part one of the next days. So within a week or two I should have working and testing Pascal programs finished. But I do not know when I can mail them to the list. That may take some time. But when done the .COM file should be coded in some kind of HEX format, so all can download them without problems. This is true bootstraping. What I want is to hear what you mean about this. Comments and ideas are very welcome. Hope that you like it and that I did not leave too much out when explaining my ideas. Kind regrads from Copenhagen -- Denmark. Klaus Elmquist Nielsen BITNET: TTTLEH5 at NEUVM1 NEUKLAUS at NEUVM1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To explain how UUENCODE works, just try to look at the binary file as one long bitstring. If one then take 6 bit at a time, this gives you a sequence of numbers in the range 0..63 . And since it is possible to find 64 independent characters, this give you a sequence of chars, or a text file. Organising this in lines with control info like line length, header and terminater gives you a useable fileformat. UUDECODE do the work in the reverse order, eg make a binary file from the ascii file from UUENCODE.
del@pilchuck.UUCP (Erik Lindberg) (07/25/86)
In article <2455@brl-smoke.ARPA>, TTTLEH5%NEUVM1.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA writes: > BUT because of all these networks, where some of the gateways change > some of the special characters (like the ARPANET - BITNET gateway), one The basic gist of this article is an intent to make uuencode/uudecode compatible with some more restrictive nets by not using certain characters. The intent is appreciated, but *don't* do this. The purpose of these programs is to be compatible with the programs of the same name available on standard Unix systems, if you change them you lose that compatibility. If you still want to do this, change the name of the program so there will be no confusion. I am only posting this because I have seen no other posting to this affect, and I think that a general response is required. I will oslo (pun intended) follow up with mail, as will probably many others. Del aka Erik Lindberg -- del (Erik Lindberg) aka Hugable Hugs: One of the few good things in life that are still free.