uuencode

uuencode [file] name | mail remoteuser

Convert a binary file to a form which can be sent to remoteuser via mail. The encoding uses only printing ASCII characters and includes the mode and name of the file. When file is reconverted via uudecode on the remote system, output is sent to name. (Therefore, when saving the encoded mail message to a file on the remote system, don't store it in a file called name, or you'll overwrite it!) Note that uuencode can take standard input, so a single argument is the name given to the file when it is decoded.

The Solaris version does local character set translation of the encoded characters.

Note: the uuencode format does not provide any kind of checksumming or other data integrity checking. It is advisable to first package files into an archive that does provide checksumming of the data (such as a .zip file), and then uuencode the archive for sending in electronic mail.