1 

     2 :mod:`uu` --- Encode and decode uuencode files

     3 ==============================================

     4 

     5 .. module:: uu

     6    :synopsis: Encode and decode files in uuencode format.

     7 .. moduleauthor:: Lance Ellinghouse

     8 

     9 

    10 This module encodes and decodes files in uuencode format, allowing arbitrary

    11 binary data to be transferred over ASCII-only connections. Wherever a file

    12 argument is expected, the methods accept a file-like object.  For backwards

    13 compatibility, a string containing a pathname is also accepted, and the

    14 corresponding file will be opened for reading and writing; the pathname ``'-'``

    15 is understood to mean the standard input or output.  However, this interface is

    16 deprecated; it's better for the caller to open the file itself, and be sure

    17 that, when required, the mode is ``'rb'`` or ``'wb'`` on Windows.

    18 

    19 .. index::

    20    single: Jansen, Jack

    21    single: Ellinghouse, Lance

    22 

    23 This code was contributed by Lance Ellinghouse, and modified by Jack Jansen.

    24 

    25 The :mod:`uu` module defines the following functions:

    26 

    27 

    28 .. function:: encode(in_file, out_file[, name[, mode]])

    29 

    30    Uuencode file *in_file* into file *out_file*.  The uuencoded file will have the

    31    header specifying *name* and *mode* as the defaults for the results of decoding

    32    the file. The default defaults are taken from *in_file*, or ``'-'`` and ``0666``

    33    respectively.

    34 

    35 

    36 .. function:: decode(in_file[, out_file[, mode[, quiet]]])

    37 

    38    This call decodes uuencoded file *in_file* placing the result on file

    39    *out_file*. If *out_file* is a pathname, *mode* is used to set the permission

    40    bits if the file must be created. Defaults for *out_file* and *mode* are taken

    41    from the uuencode header.  However, if the file specified in the header already

    42    exists, a :exc:`uu.Error` is raised.

    43 

    44    :func:`decode` may print a warning to standard error if the input was produced

    45    by an incorrect uuencoder and Python could recover from that error.  Setting

    46    *quiet* to a true value silences this warning.

    47 

    48 

    49 .. exception:: Error()

    50 

    51    Subclass of :exc:`Exception`, this can be raised by :func:`uu.decode` under

    52    various situations, such as described above, but also including a badly

    53    formatted header, or truncated input file.

    54 

    55 

    56 .. seealso::

    57 

    58    Module :mod:`binascii`

    59       Support module containing ASCII-to-binary and binary-to-ASCII conversions.

    60