(sharutils.info)shar encoding

---

Next: shar in-out Prev: shar compression Up: shar Invocation

---

Enter node , (file) or (file)node

2.1.3 encoding options
----------------------

Specifying file encoding methodology.  Files may be stored in the shar
either as plain text or uuencoded.  By default, the program selects
which by examining the file.  You may force the selection for all
files.  In intermixed option/file mode, this setting may be changed
during processing.

mixed-uuencode option (-M).
...........................

This is the "decide uuencoding for each file" option.

This option has some usage constraints.  It:
   * is a member of the mixed-uuencode class of options.

   Automatically determine if the files are text or binary and archive
correctly.  Files found to be binary are uuencoded prior to packing.
This is the default behavior for `shar'.

   For a file to be considered a text file instead of a binary file,
all the following should be true:
  1. The file does not contain any ASCII control character besides <BS>
     (backspace), <HT> (horizontal tab), <LF> (new line) or <FF> (form
     feed).

  2. The file contains no character with its eighth-bit set.

  3. The file contains no line beginning with the five letters "`from
     '", capitalized or not.  (Mail handling programs will often
     gratuitously insert a `>' character before it.)

  4. The file is either empty or ends with a <LF> (newline) byte.

  5. No line in the file contains more than 200 characters.  For
     counting purpose, lines are separated by a <LF> (newline).

uuencode option (-B).
.....................

This is the "treat all files as binary" option.

This option has some usage constraints.  It:
   * is a member of the mixed-uuencode class of options.

   Use `uuencode' prior to packing all files.  This increases the size
of the archive.  The recipient must have `uudecode' in order to unpack.
Compressed files are always encoded.

text-files option (-T).
.......................

This is the "treat all files as text" option.

This option has some usage constraints.  It:
   * is a member of the mixed-uuencode class of options.

   If you have files with non-ascii bytes or text that some mail
handling programs do not like, you may find difficulties.  However, if
you are using FTP or SSH/SCP, the non-conforming text files should be
okay.