
``uu`` --- Encode and decode uuencode files
*******************************************

This module encodes and decodes files in uuencode format, allowing
arbitrary binary data to be transferred over ASCII-only connections.
Wherever a file argument is expected, the methods accept a file-like
object.  For backwards compatibility, a string containing a pathname
is also accepted, and the corresponding file will be opened for
reading and writing; the pathname ``'-'`` is understood to mean the
standard input or output.  However, this interface is deprecated; it's
better for the caller to open the file itself, and be sure that, when
required, the mode is ``'rb'`` or ``'wb'`` on Windows.

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

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

uu.encode(in_file, out_file[, name[, mode]])

   Uuencode file *in_file* into file *out_file*.  The uuencoded file
   will have the header specifying *name* and *mode* as the defaults
   for the results of decoding the file. The default defaults are
   taken from *in_file*, or ``'-'`` and ``0666`` respectively.

uu.decode(in_file[, out_file[, mode[, quiet]]])

   This call decodes uuencoded file *in_file* placing the result on
   file *out_file*. If *out_file* is a pathname, *mode* is used to set
   the permission bits if the file must be created. Defaults for
   *out_file* and *mode* are taken from the uuencode header.  However,
   if the file specified in the header already exists, a ``uu.Error``
   is raised.

   ``decode()`` may print a warning to standard error if the input was
   produced by an incorrect uuencoder and Python could recover from
   that error.  Setting *quiet* to a true value silences this warning.

exception uu.Error

   Subclass of ``Exception``, this can be raised by ``uu.decode()``
   under various situations, such as described above, but also
   including a badly formatted header, or truncated input file.

See also:

   Module ``binascii``
      Support module containing ASCII-to-binary and binary-to-ASCII
      conversions.
