Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU!dnwiebe
From: dnwiebe@CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Dan N Wiebe)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Comp.graphics.images
Message-ID: <8911212014.AA06822@ironwood.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 21 Nov 89 20:14:51 GMT
Sender: dnwiebe@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Lines: 23

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The uuencoded and compressed versions of the GIF images, while smaller
than the uncompressed, uuencoded versions, are still about 25% larger
than the pure GIF data.
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	This is probably just because I'm dense, or something, but what
good is a compressed uuencoded file?  Uuencode converts an 8-bit file
to a 7-bit file so that it can be sent through mail or some other ASCII
service, right?  Since this makes a file both larger *and* unusable
(you have to uudecode it first), it would seem to me that the only reason
for the existence of a uuencoded file would be transmission, and once that
was done, it would be uudecoded to shrink it back down and make it useful.
Unix compress produces an 8-bit file, doesn't it?  So using compress on
a uuencoded file, it would seem, defeats the one and only purpose of
uuencoding it in the first place.
	It looks to me like a more profitable route to compress and *then*
uuencode, producing file.gif.Z.uue instead of file.gif.uue.Z, but even
this isn't too sensible because compress can rarely make a .GIF file
any smaller.
	Thanks for all the forthcoming explanations...

Dan Wiebe