Package: sharutils
Version: 1:4.6.3-0
Severity: minor
Tags: patch
Thank you for recently fixing some very old issues with this manpage.
May I make a further suggestion?
I think the main paragraph for uuencode is currently quite unclear and
also inaccurate. Unclear because of the future tense combined with jumping
between the description of encoding and decoding. Inaccurate, because _name_
is only a *suggestion* ("uudecode -o" can override the name).
How about the following text instead?
Uuencode reads _file_ (or by default the standard input) and writes an
encoded version to the standard output, using only printing ASCII
characters. The encoded output begins with a header, for use by uudecode,
which records the mode of the input file and suggests _name_ for the
decoded file that will be created. (If _name_ is /dev/stdout then
uudecode will decode to standard output.) The encoding has the format
documented at uuencode(5), unless the option -m is given, when base64
encoding is used instead.
I attach a fairly small patch for this.
Actually, would you consider a patch for bigger changes?
For a start, the manpage should use fonts in a more standard way.
More importantly, I think BUGS should list something like this:
o uudecode silently overwrites _name_ if it exists already
o uudecode accepts names like ../foo
Thus, users would at least be warned that they should always inspect the
header lines or use the -o option.
(If you judge that this belongs upstream, I'd be grateful if you could
forward it, thank you.)
Yours,
(Dr) Jeremy Bygott
Oxford
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
--- uuencode.1.exp 2007-02-17 12:15:16.035662000 +0000
+++ uuencode.1.new 2007-02-17 16:31:20.535903808 +0000
@@ -45,8 +45,8 @@
.I Uuencode
and
.I uudecode
-are used to transmit binary files over transmission mediums
-that do not support other than simple
+are used to transmit binary files over channels
+that support only simple
ASCII
data.
.PP
@@ -54,22 +54,23 @@
reads
.I file
(or by default the standard input) and writes an encoded version
-to the standard output.
-The encoding uses only printing
+to the standard output, using only printing
ASCII
-characters and includes the
-mode of the file and the operand
+characters. The encoded output begins with a header, for use by
+.IR uudecode ,
+which records the mode of the input file and suggests
.I name
-for use by
-.I uudecode.
-If
+for the decoded file that will be created. (If
.I name
is
.I /dev/stdout
-the result will be written to standard output. By default the standard
-UU encoding format will be used. If the option
+then
+.I uudecode
+will decode to standard output.) The encoding has the format
+documented at uuencode(5), unless
+the option
.I \-m
-is given on the command line
+is given, when
.B base64
encoding is used instead.
.PP
@@ -96,8 +97,8 @@
.I name
is /dev/stdout the result will be written to standard output.
.I Uudecode
-ignores any leading and trailing lines. The program can automatically decide
-which of the both supported encoding schemes are used.
+ignores any leading and trailing lines. The program tells from the
+header which of the two supported encoding schemes was used.
.SH EXAMPLES
The following example packages up a source tree, compresses it,
uuencodes it and mails it to a user on another system.
