Re: Proposed IBIS librarian protocol

>> c. All files should be
>> gnu tar'ed and uuencoded
>> OR tar'ed and compressed and uuencoded
>> OR zip'ed and uuencoded
>> into a single file before mailing. Files should be mailed to

UUENCODE is bad news for some mailers. Sometimes, as part of its
encoding, it uses blank spaces at the end of a line. Certain
mailers will remove the blanks from the end of the line, because
they don't add any information for a HUMAN reading the message...

It makes for serious heartbreaks when it happens, because you have to
edit the file somehow to add the spaces. Not fun.

There's another up-and-coming standard for transfers of binary
data via e-mail, called MIME (Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions,
RFC 1341), that works a lot better. To quote from the FAQ:

        One of the best things about MIME is that it's a "four-wheel drive
        protocol", to borrow a description of PhoneNet from Einar Stefferud.
        MIME was carefully designed to survive many of the most bizarre
        variations of SMTP, UUCP, and Procrustean mail transport protocols,
        such as BITNET and MMDF, that like to slice, dice, and stretch the
        headers and bodies of email messages.

At its simplest, the UUENCODE/UUDECODE programs are replaced in MIME by
the "mmencode" program, which is available (in source form) by anonymous
FTP from thumper.bellcore.com, /pub/nsb/mm2.7.tar.Z. Runs under both
DOS & UNIX.

This format should probably be made available to IBIS Library users as an
alternative to UUENCODE.

--Eric

    | .'`_'`_'`_'`_'`_'`_'`_'`_'`_'`_'`_'`_'`_'`_'`_'. |
    | (*) |My Opinions are mine and mine alone!! | \^/ |
    T_<">_.|~. .~. .~. .~. .~. .~. .~. .~. .~. .~|._(#)_ |
    o\ ^ /\| ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ |/\`^'/(=)
     /_Y_\ | J. Eric Bracken | /_X_\
_____d|_|b_T_____________________bracken@performance.com__T_d|_|b________
Received on Thu Sep 15 13:13:01 1994