Short: Encode/decode replacements (68k and PPC) Author: Tom Lawrence, Andreas R. Kleinert (port) Uploader: Andreas_Kleinert t-online de Type: util/arc Architecture: m68k-amigaos; ppc-powerup Yet another uuencode/decode style set of programs (yacoder). Encode and decode are utilities which encode binary data into printable format suitable for transmission via email, posting to usenet, etc. They are intended to replace the aging uuencode and uudecode. Encode features a very flexible encoding scheme which allows the user to specify exactly which printable characters to use in the output. The default is to use all 95 printable characters in the encoding process, as this produces the least expansion of the input data. However, for cases such as file transfer to a mainframe or to a foreign country where some characters may be modified en route, these characters can simply be removed from the output character set. Encoding is possible with as few as 2 characters in the output character set. The number of bits required to encode n distinct values is log2(n) (log base 2 of n). For example, to encode 256 distinct values, you need log2(256) = 8 bits. Uuencode maps 3 input characters to 4 output characters for an expansion of 33% (not including control information). Lately several encoding schemes which map 4 input characters to 5 output characters have popped up, for an expansion of 25%. The implementation of this encoding process is fairly simplistic and incorporates no more than the basic functionality provided by uuencode/uudecode. It is intended primarily to introduce this encoding scheme to the public in the hopes that it will be widely adopted. Should such adoption occur, this file should be used as a standard reference for the encoding algorithm. This port does include 68k and PPC versions. For the ELF binaries, the "e" protection bit already has been set (so that you can run these directly from Shell using the ElfLoadSeg patch - otherwise please use SAS/C's "RunElf" tool). What had to be done for the port ? Mainly adding the makefile plus this readme. -- ARK, 7/May/98