[comp.os.minix] Comment on using uuencode for postings

hall@cod.NOSC.MIL (Robert R. Hall) (10/10/89)

Gee I am disturbed by the thought that Tanenbaum is going to use
uuencode to post the 1.4b version to avoid problems with Bitnet
and will still have Bitnet problems.  That is the Minix version
of uuencode does not work.  It uses space characters and Bitnet
strips space which precedes new lines.  In particular the line
preceding the END statement is just such a case.  Trying to uudecode
such a file that has passed through Bitnet, it uudecode with an error
message and since the file count is short it also doesn't find the end
statement and appends a lot of garbage to the file.

Thus would someone on Bitnet who has a usable version of uuencode
such as the Demus version please send the source code to
Tanenbaum or better yet post to the net.

Robert R. Hall
hall@nosc.mil

ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (10/12/89)

In article <1661@cod.NOSC.MIL> hall@cod.NOSC.MIL (Robert R. Hall) writes:
>
>Gee I am disturbed by the thought that Tanenbaum is going to use
>uuencode to post the 1.4b version to avoid problems with Bitnet

Actually it isn't that bad, since I am going to build the posting on a
Sun-3, using Sun's uuencode.  Still, if there is a bug in the MINIX version
of uuencode, I am certainly interested in a fix.  Needless to say, any
new version must be compatible with the existing uuencode/uudecode in use
all over the place.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)