Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!husc6!wjh12!djb
From: djb@wjh12.harvard.edu (David J. Birnbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: which archiver/compresser and encoder/decoder to use?
Message-ID: <449@wjh12.harvard.edu>
Date: 23 Feb 90 14:13:19 GMT
References: <36517@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <7806@yunexus.UUCP> <36569@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <100118@looking.on.ca> <448@wjh12.harvard.edu> <{#^#GY@rpi.edu>
Reply-To: djb@wjh12.UUCP (David J. Birnbaum)
Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge MA
Lines: 36

In article <{#^#GY@rpi.edu> joefritz@pawl.rpi.edu (Jochen M. Fritz) writes:

(in response to my noting that DABE was the only uudecode alternative that
included the ability to reassemble multiple part files):

>The uuencode/decode I have (V3.07 by Richard Marks, PC) will fragment files
>automatically, and even automatically put them pack together.

This is a useful feature of Richard's uuencode/uudecode.  But my original
posting referred to uuencode *alternatives*, since uuencoded files are
useless for transmission between many ASCII and EBCDIC sites.  Of the
programs that use safer encoding schemes, only ABE automatically generates
multiple parts.  Richard's earlier posting announcing that he hoped to
add xx coding as an alternative to his program will provide another system 
that combines safe coding with automatic splitting and recombination.

Thanks also for Brad's clarification to my posting about the way DABE
deals with multiple-part files under MS-DOS.  I originally stated inac-
curately that DABE could not decode multiple-part files under MS-DOS
if the parts were out of order.  What I should have said was that it
can't expand wildcards; MS-DOS users need something like 'cat' to com-
bine all the pieces, but DABE will sort them out even if they are not
in order.

Users with aliasing capabilities and a smart MS-DOS cat can redefine
DABE as 'cat %& | dabe', where %& passes all command line parameters
to the alias.  This is the syntax in 4dos; CED and others may vary.
This will effectively add wildcard capabilities to the MS-DOS implemen-
tation of DABE without requiring any changes in the code.

--David

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David J. Birnbaum         djb@wjh12.harvard.edu [Internet]
                          djb@harvunxw.bitnet   [Bitnet]
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