This is a library of utilities to help mail files using UUCP. There
are three pairs of programs:

UUENC / UUDEC, SHAR / UNSHAR, BTOA / ATOB

plus four other utilities:

ROT13, LFCONV, ZCAT, and UNTAR


UUENC and UUDEC are for transferring binary files in uuencode format:
UUENC encodes a file, useage is:

A>UUENC FILE [ >OUTFILE ]

where FILE is the input binary file. If no output file is given, the
result is simply printed to the screen, however it can be redirected
as shown. By saying '>OUTFILE' the output will be placed in OUTFILE,
overwriting the file if it already exists. Output can also be appended
to a file by specifying '>>OUTFILE'. Note that there can not be any
spaces between the '>' and the filename.

UUDEC takes a uuencoded file as input, and recreates the original
binary file from it. Since a uuencoded file carries the filename with it,
all that is needed is to provide the filename of the input file:

A>UUDEC UUFILE

and the output file will be created. Note that it will always be created
in the current Drive / User area. This is not usually a problem, since
all programs in this system can take full DU: prefixes for filenames:

FILE.COM
A:MAILFILE.UU
B7:TEXT.TXT
25:PROG.COM

are all legal filenames, the only combination not allowed is 18C:FILE.EXT,
if a drive and user are given, the drive must come first.


SHAR is a tool for wrapping several source files into a single text archive,
usage is:

A>SHAR AFN1 AFN2 ..... [ >OUTFILE ]

where AFN1 AFN2 etc. are possibly ambiguous filenames:

SHAR C7:*.C C7:*.H >>D27:SOURCE.SH

is a typical usage, this would wrap all .C and .H files on C7:, and append
the output to D27:SOURCE.SH

UNSHAR reverses this, it accepts a list of files produced by SHAR, and
recreates all the constituent files. UNSHAR takes one option, if the
first argument is -C, then files will be overwritten, otherwise UNSHAR
will not extract a file that already exists. The filenames given to UNSHAR
can be ambiguous, so:

A>UNSHAR -C B15:*.SH

will unwrap all .SH files on B15:, and overwrite already existing files.
As with UUDEC, files are always created on the current drive/user, however
since the input files can be read from anywhere, this is not a problem.


BTOA performs a similar function to UUENC, it encodes a binary file as
printable ascii. Unfortunately BTOA and UUENC are not compatible, so
it is worth noting the advantages and disadvantages of both methods.
UUENC is a far more popular method, having been around for many years
now, and it also carries the filename in the encoded data. BTOA is
not as well known, being somewhat of a newcomer, and it does not carry
the filename. However BTOA is more efficient: UUENC increases filesize
by about 33%, whereas BTOA increases by only 25%, and in addition BTOA
includes error checking to detect the possibility of files damaged in
transit. The best rule of thumb is to use UUENC if you're not sure, since
just about everyone will have it, and use BTOA when you know your
recipient has that.

Usage of BTOA is much like UUENC:

A>BTOA FILE [ >OUTFILE ]

will encode FILE placing (or appending with '>>') output in OUTFILE.

ATOB is the reverse of BTOA, it needs both filenames:

A>ATOB INFILE OUTFILE

is how it would be invoked. Note that ATOB can place the output file
anywhere:

ATOB B23:TEXT.BTA C17:PROGRAM.COM

is acceptable, and will place the output in C17:PROGRAM.COM


ROT13 reads standard input, and writes stadard output, and performs the
usual rot13 cifer on the input text. So to read a file encoded rot13, the
following command:

A>ROT13 <FILE.R13

would print the results to the screen. Similarly, to encode (or decode)
from one file to another, a command like:

A>ROT13 <INFILE >OUTFILE

would convert INFILE and place the result in OUTFILE.


LFCONV reads and writes in the same manner, but it performs a conversion
between UNIX files (LF only to terminate lines) and CP/M text files
(CR/LF to terminate lines). It will read either sort of input file, and
when sending output to the screen, it prints correctly. So:

A>LFCONV <FILE.UNX

would take FILE.UNX which could be in UNIX format, and print it on the screen
with lines terminated correctly. When sending output to a file, the default
operation is to convert to CP/M format, so:

A>LFCONV <FILE.UNX >FILE.CPM

will convert the file, using CR/LF as the line terminator. The reverse
conversion is also possible: by providing a -U switch, output will be in UNIX
format, with LF only to separate lines. So:

A>LFCONV -U <FILE1.CPM >FILE1.UNX

would strip the CR's out of FILE1.CPM, leaving FILE1.UNX in the correct format
for UNIX.


ZCAT is a utility to decompress UNIX compressed files, it'll handle things
all the way to 16 bit compression, but for 14 or more bits data has to be
paged to disk. It takes up to 200K for full operation, and it's best to
put it on a hard disk (or better) a ram disk. Right now, the binary is set
to place the data on A:, however by looking in the binary the location of
the page FCB's can be seen (ZCAT$$$$.000 thru ZCAT$$$$.009), and the drive
bytes can be changed.


UNTAR will extract files from a UNIX tar file, it takes the name of the
tar archive as it's argument, and creates the files in the current drive/
user area.