Subject: RE: net transfer encoding

From: Dorothy Day <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 Jan 91 00:19:00 EST

Besides UUencoding, a more recent and less widely known scheme is
XXencoding. Unlike UUE, XXE permits use of lower-case alpha
characters; however, it does not use many non-alphanumeric characters,
and its files thus survive network transfer better. (No "^" for
example.)

The reason even some Ascii files become corrupted is the default
tranlation protocols some of the mainframes use. (EBCDIC for example is
implemented in several different ways and performs some unrequested
translation.) If you're certain that the net path you use travels only
VMS Vaxes, you might expect safe transfer; however, your file may well
pass through IBM VM systems and Unix machines, with unreliable
results. XXencoding is probably the safest scheme to date.

Simtel has Richard E. Mark's latest UUE program, UUREM413.ZIP. With
the -x switch it will XXencode your files; even without the switch it
will detect and decode XXencoded files. An earlier version, UUREM316
also had this capability.

Be sure to set your download filetype (in Kermit, Procomm) to Ascii
for downloading UU- or XXencoded files.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 26 Jan 91 00:50:00 EST

If you can get a copy of Richard E. Mark's UUE programs, they also 
allow XXencoding/decoding. The name on BBS lists is UUREM413.ZIP 
(latest version); UUREM316.ZIP also has the -x switch to XXencode. You 
don't have to use the -x switch to XXdecode; it autodetects XXencoded 
files and uses the right algorithm. It's Public Domain. Simtel ought 
to have it if you can't find it elsewhere. 
	(ftp WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL) 
There was a UUEXE402.ZIP dated 900525 in the PD1:<MSDOS.FILUTL> 
directory in December; they may hav a more recent version by now.
	Dorothy Day