en/decoding [was: Re: Commented search routine]

["..." adpf@xxxxxxxx]

:	Freeware base64 decoders are easy to come by.
:	If all else fails, search Yahoo!
	--me

:	True--but it bears remembering that not everyone who has
:	an Internetable E-mail address has that kind of net (or Web) access.
	--Michael Paul McDowell

I may be assuming too much, but I'd expect anyone posting to a 'net
mailing list at least to have access to a local bbs with such standard
utilities in its software library.

:	Posting in Base64 is comparable to uploading in ZOO or PAK format
:	--it effectively limits access to whatever it is the poster is
:	contributing. (Adequate proof of that can be found on just about
:	any alt.binaries.* group, where the posting of something in Base64
:	regularly and inevitably leads to a flurry of posts either
:	complaining or requesting a repost in UUCODE.)
:	I suspect that AOL's software chokes on Base64 files;

I don't think so. I receive base64 attachments from two writer friends
with no interest in becoming computer-literate beyond what they need to
know to make a living. One has an AO acct, the other uses the local Well
wannabe, Echo, and his only 'net service is email. It's a pretty sure bet
that neither exercises control over how his service encodes attachments.
Whether we like it or not--and I don't either--I think we just have to
live with base64.

:	I have had quite good luck, however, with mime attachments,
:	which are UU-encoded. But if your server can't decode them, you
:	can't do it independently, because of the lack of header data.
:	Of course by "you" I mean "I"; Annie may well have licked this
:	minor problem.
	--Nathan Sivin

Why elm decodes certain attachments and not others mystifies me, but
it doesn't matter to me: I download all my email (which includes everything
I retrieve from Usenet and www) for processing in xyW. When the server has
left an attachment encoded I just "do" my xx/uu or base64 decoder from
the xyW 3 CMline with my same xpl pgm that also encodes and zips or unzips.
No muss, no fuss.

I never did anything to lick the problem you mention, Nathan, because I
never had it. The only prob I did have with standard encoding (vs. XXbug)
was an inability to XXdecode. That turned out to be the fault of a bug in
my decoder, fixed in the next upgrade (Richard Marks's UUENCODE/DECODE
v5.40, which seems to be the NBlist en/decoder of choice, and that list
is where info about the XX bug came from). ... Sounds to me like you're
being fed sysop technobabble. Wanna borrow my Orphan Annie special
secret decoding ring? 	--a

============================= adpFisher  nyc