.TH MMENCODE 1L "Elm Version 2.5" "USENET Community Trust"
.SH NAME
mmencode - Translate to and from mail-oriented encoding formats
.SH SYNOPSIS
.ta 8n
.B mmencode
[
.B \-ubq
] [
.B \-o
outputfile ] [ inputfile ]
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.I mmencode
program 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.  Such an encoding is necessary
because binary data cannot be sent through the mail.  The encodings
understood by
.I mmencode
are preferable to the use of the
.IR uuencode (1)
and
.IR uudecode (1)
programs, for use in mail, in several respects that were important to
the authors of MIME.
.P
By default,
.I mmencode
reads standard input, and sends a ``base64'' encoded version of the
.I inputfile
to standard output.  If no
.I inputfile
is specified, then the standard input is processed.
.P
The following options are available.
.IP "\fB\-b\fP"
Tells
.I mmencode
to process ``base64'' encoding (which is the default).
.IP "\fB\-q\fP"
Tells
.I mmencode
to process ``quoted-printable'' encoding instead of ``base64''.
.IP "\fB\-u\fP"
Tells
.I mmencode
to decode the input, rather than encode it.
.IP "\fB\-o\fP"
Output will be sent to
.I outputfile
instead of the standard output.
.SH RATIONALE
.I mmencode
is intended to be a replacement for
.I uuencode
for mail and news use.  The reason is simple:
.I uuencode
doesn't work very well in a number of circumstances and ways.  In
particular, uuencode uses characters that don't translate well across
all mail gateways (particularly ASCII <-> EBCDIC gateways).  Also,
.I uuencode
is not standard -- there are several variants floating around, encoding
and decoding things in different and incompatible ways, with no
``standard'' on which to base an implementation.  Finally,
.I uuencode
does not generally work well in a pipe, although some variants have
been modified to do so.
.I mmencode
implements the encodings which were defined for MIME as
.I uuencode
replacements, and should be considerably more robust for email use.
.SH SEE ALSO
metamail(1), uuencode(1), uudecode(1)
.SH BUGS
This program is derived from the
.I mmencode
provided in the
.I metamail
package.  That package also links this program to the name
.IR mimencode .
The
.B \-p
option, which is provided in the
.I metamail
implementation, is accepted as a noop.
.SH COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1991 Bell Communications Research, Inc. (Bellcore)
.P
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this material for any
purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies, and
that the name of Bellcore not be used in advertising or publicity
pertaining to this material without the specific, prior written
permission of an authorized representative of Bellcore.  BELLCORE
MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE ACCURACY OR SUITABILITY OF THIS
MATERIAL FOR ANY PURPOSE.  IT IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES.
.SH AUTHOR
Nathaniel S. Borenstein