[net.micro.atari16] uuencode

jhs@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA (09/14/86)

I was giving myself fits trying to uuencode a file on the VAX with output into
another local file until I finally figured out that the argument called
'destfile' in the uuencode manual is just the string to put as destination
file name in the 'begin' line.

If you leave out this string, uuencode apparently takes the first argument
to be that string and assumes that you meant to type in your binary file at
the keyboard.  (Sounds like a silly assumption to me, but I didn't write
uuencode.)

To uuencode into a local file, I found the following syntax to be necessary
(or at any rate sufficient, which is sufficient!):

	uuencode inputfilename anystring >output filename

It is useful to use for the string the filename you want to put the thing in
when it gets to the final destination.  For the local output filename, I have
settled on .uue as an extionsion.

I thought some of the other people currently preoccupied with uuencode might
have run into the same problem so I hope this helps.

-John Sangster
jhs@mitre-bedford.arpa