GTHEALL@PENNDRLN.BITNET (George A. Theall) (09/22/88)
True, some mailers do drop trailing blanks in a line, and this causes UUDECODE to barf. This does not mean, however, the postings are "useless". Since UUDECODE requires each line to be of the same length (specifically, 61) it is trivial to add the trailing spaces back. Use an editor with a macro, write a simple (insert your favourite language here:-) program to ensure this condition is satisfied, or even modify UUDECODE itself. Another source of problem is communications packages which, in an effort to speed up transfers, drop trailing blanks. Kermit does this by default. If you use an IBM mainframe, there's an ARC-like utility running under CMS which handles UUENCODEd and ARCed files - it's called ARCUTIL. A similar utility exists for VAXen running VMS - called VMSSWEEP. Others may exist for different mainframes. George /*--------------------------------------------*/ /* BITNET: GTHEALL@PENNDRLN */ /* INTERNET: GTHEALL@PENNDRLN.UPENN.EDU */ /* SnailMail: Department of Economics */ /* University of Pennsylvania */ /* 3718 Locust Walk /6297 */ /* Philadelphia, PA. 19104 */ /* AT+TNet: (215) 898-6741 */ /* ICBMNet: 39 57 N, 75 11 W, 200 Alt */ /*--------------------------------------------*/