🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <8609121915.AA27613@mitre-bedford.ARPA>, jhs@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA writes:
> I was giving myself fits trying to uuencode a file on the VAX...
>                               uuencode apparently takes the first argument
> to be that string and assumes that you meant to type in your binary file at
> the keyboard.  (Sounds like a silly assumption to me, but I didn't write
> uuencode.)

Uuencode is assuming that you know about standard input and output.
Since you used standard output redirection, (the > sign), it sounds
like a reasonable assumption.  This lets you pipe things to uuencode,
for example.
 
> To uuencode into a local file, I found the following syntax to be necessary
> (or at any rate sufficient, which is sufficient!):
> 
> 	uuencode inputfilename anystring >output filename

You could also use:

	uuencode anystring <input >output

I agree that uuencode's command line leaves something to be desired.
It would've been better to make the "destination string" be an option
(eg  uuencode -d deststring input >output).  I just thought I'd remind
people that "programs that default to reading from the keyboard" are
really "programs that default to reading standard input" -- a good thing.
-- 
John Gilmore  {sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu   jgilmore@lll-crg.arpa
		     May the Source be with you!