12.7 uu -- Encode and decode uuencode files
Keywords: lib

# 12.7 `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 or DOS.

This code was contributed by Lance Ellinghouse, and modified by Jack Jansen.

The `uu` module defines the following functions:

`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.

`decode` (in_file[, out_file[, mode]])
  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.

See Also:

Module `binascii`:
  support module containing ASCII-to-binary and binary-to-ASCII conversions.