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# 18.16. `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.

See also

Latest version of the uu module Python source code

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.

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