.de (l .br .nf .. .de )l .br .fi .. .TH xmitBin 1 "3 December 1993" .SH "NAME" .B xmitBin \- binary file poster/mailer (version 1.9). .SH "SYNOPSIS" .B xmitBin .B \-d .I destination .B \-f .I fileToTransmit [ .B \-a .I followUps/ccList ] [ .B \-post [ .B \-as .I anonUser ] ] [ .B \-no0 ] [ .B \-nosplit | .B \-patch .I whichPart [ .B \-split .I splitSize ] ] [ .B \-verbose ] [ .B \-noscript ] [ .B \-noencode ] [ .B \-nc ] [ .B \-nd ] [ .B \-l .I label ] [ .B \-xh .I extraHeaderFilePath ] [ .I extraTitleInfo ] .SH "DESCRIPTION" .B xmitBin uuencodes, splits, and transmits a binary file, either to a UseNet newsgroup, or to an email address. Additionally, .B xmitBin can also be used to re-post or re-email a part or parts of a file, should errors in the first transmission occur. By default, the entire file is emailed to the provided .I destination address, in parts of no more than 800 uuencoded source lines, with script headers and trailers to facilitate re-assembly once all parts have arrived at .I destination. .PP .B xmitBin first attempts to determine the type of binary file being transmitted. If a description of .I fileToTransmit does not exist (either in the current working directory or in the directory defined by the setting of the .B DSCDIR environmental variable), and .I fileToTransmit is a picture file, the viewer described by the .B VIEWER environmental variable is invoked on .I fileToTransmit (to allow the user to see the picture, in order to better facilitate its description). Once the viewer is exitted (or if .I fileToTransmit was not a picture), the editor described by the .B EDITOR environmental variable is invoked to complete the writing of the description (this description will later be included in part 0 of the pieces to be sent). If a patch is being transmitted, a patch note may similarly be editted. All pertinent settings are then echoed, and the user is given an opportunity to continue with the transmission, abort the operation, or change any of the settings. Transmission of .I fileToTransmit then takes place by invoking the mail utility specified by .B MAILER or the UseNet news posting software specified by the .B POSTER environmental variable, as appropriate. If either .I fileToTransmit or .I destination are not provided, the program aborts without taking any action. Also, if the path for .B awk\fR(1), \fBcat\fR(1), \fBsplit\fR(1), \fBwc\fR(1), or (if .B \-noencode is not specified) \fBuuencode\fR(1) cannot be determined, or if the .B MAILER \fRor \fBPOSTER environmental variables appropriate to the requested task are not set, the user will be notified of this fact, and .B xmitBin will not be run. The settings of .B EDITOR \fRand \fBVIEWER are not absolutely required for operation, but are encouraged, since they facilitate the creation of description information. Arguments specified for .I destination and/or .I followUps/ccList may be either a single entry or a comma-seperated list of multiple entries. .SH "OPTIONS" .TP .B \-a \fIfollowUps/ccList If posting, use .I followUps/ccList as the newsgroup to which follow-ups should be directed, else use .I followUps/ccList as the mail CC: list. .TP .B \-post Override the default mailing of the uuencoded file by posting as a series of UseNet articles. .TP .B \-as \fIanonUser Post anonymously as described by the \fIanonUser\fR.anondat file, which may be either in the current directory, or in the directory specified by the .B ANONDIR environmental variable. This file is a text description of the data necessary for anonymous posting, in the format: .(l \fBUSER=\fIanonymous_user_name \fBSITEHOST=\fIanonymous_site_name \fBSIGPATH=\fIpath_to_anonymous_sig_file \fBUSERALIAS=\fIanonymous_user_alias \fBUSERHOST=\fIanonymous_user_host \fBSITEPATH=\fIuunet_path_prefix_data \fR .)l (all of which must start at the beginning of the line - no tabs or other white space allowed). Of this data, only the .B USER and .B SITEHOST data .I must be specified, as these are used in critical portions of the article header, but specifying all other fields will add to the degree of anonymity. Any extraneous info in the anonymous data specification file will be passed on to the article header intact (this feature is useful for specifying "Organization:" for example). .TP .B \-no0 Specifies that a part 0 containing file description information and extraction instructions should not be created/delivered. Any file description information is added to the beginning of the first part. Note that this option cannot be specified in conjunction with requesting transmission of patch part 0 (i.e. "-no0 -patch 0" is an illegal combination). .TP .B \-nosplit Indicates that no file splitting should take place, and that the file should be delivered in one part, with any file description information added to the beginning of that part. This option implies .B \-no0. Note also that this option is incompatible with any patch request or split option (i.e. "-nosplit -patch" and "-nosplit -split" cannot be specified together). .TP .B \-noencode The data should not be encoded, but should be transmitted intact. This option is useful for transmitting other types of encoded data (such as Macintosh BinHex or UNIX atob format). All other actions (script wrapping, splitting, etc.) are done according to defaults or option overrides, with the exception that a modified script wrapper and decoding instructions are applied. These changes, of course, don't require that uudecode be necessary as a processing step (you will need to specify more detailed descriptions/instructions yourself if you use this option, as .B xmitBin cannot give reliable decoding instructions in this case). .TP .B \-patch \fIwhichPart Specifies which part or parts should be sent as a patch to an earlier transmission. .I whichPart may either be in the first form or any combination of the last two forms: .(l \fBX \fR= only part \fBX \fBX,Y \fR= parts \fBX \fRand \fBY \fBX-Y \fR= the range of parts between \fBX \fRand \fBY \fR(inclusive) .)l .TP .B \-split \fIsplitSize Specifies an override to the default of 800 as the size in which to split the uuencoded binary file. .TP .B \-verbose Inform the user of all pertinent operations as they occur. .TP .B \-noscript Disable script header/trailer insertion into all uuencoded parts. Sends only the "raw" uuencoded data (with BEGIN/END delimiter lines). .TP .B \-nc Execute the transmission without confirmation of settings from the user (no confirm). Note that in this state, the description file .B MUST exist, or .B xmitBin will terminate with an error (and without transmitting the file). If the patch note file does not exist, a warning message will be issued, but execution will continue. Both these effects can be overridden by using the .B \-nd option. .TP .B \-nd Specifies that a description file is not to be included, whether or not it exists. .TP .B \-l \fIlabel Adds the information specified in .I label to the Subject: line of the mailed/posted parts (in curly brackets). .TP .B \-xh \fIextraHeaderFilePath Adds the information contained in .I extraHeaderFilePath as part of the mail or posting header. This information is added exactly as specified in .I extraHeaderFilePath, with no processing (except to omit any blank lines). This option only works correctly in conjunction with an appropriate MAILER setting (the MAILER program must allow the inclusion of extra header information). If an inappropriate MAILER program is used, the extra information will appear as part of the message text, rather than as part of the header. There are no known issues when using this with the .B -post option, however. .TP .TP .I extraTitleInfo Add additional text (in double quotes) to the Subject: line to further describe the trasmitted file. .SH "ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES" .TP .B EDITOR Defines the path to the text editor of choice (this is a UNIX-standard variable, and therefore not exclusive to xmitBin). .TP .B VIEWER Defines the command used to view images (the author uses, and recommends, "xv -perfect", but any appropriate image viewer will of course work). .TP .B POSTER Defines the path to the command used to post raw UseNet articles (i.e. "/usr/local/inews -h"). .TP .B MAILER Defines the path to the command used to mail articles (i.e. "/usr/ucb/mail", or "/usr/lib/sendmail -t"). .TP .B DSCDIR Defines the directory that will be used to contain all description (*.dsc) and patch description (*.pat) files. .TP .B ANONDIR Defines the directory that will be used to contain all anonymous posting data specifications (*.anondat). .TP .B TMPDIR Specifies the directory where all temporary files will be created. If not specified, the compile-time default for this directory is used. Note that description or patch files created as part of an .B xmitBin run are also considered temporary files. In the case of these two types of file, however, the user is queried as to whether to move them to the path defined by the setting of the .B DSCDIR environmental variable (if it is defined) after file transmission has completed. .TP .B REPLYTO Specifies a non-default "Reply-To:" field when posting. .SH "EXAMPLES" .TP xmitBin -d \fIa_friend \fR-f \fIa_file Default operation - send \fIa_file \fRto \fIa_friend. \fBxmitBin \fRwill first assure that \fIa_file \fRexists, and will attempt to gather statistics on the contents of that file, if possible. If \fBEDITOR \fRis set to a valid value, it is executed in order to write a description for \fIa_file. \fRThe user is then asked to assure that all settings are correct, and if confirmed, the file is sent to \fIa_friend \fRvia the e-mail command specified by \fBMAILER, \fRin a series of 800-line data sections. Script headers and trailers are included in all parts, except part 0, which contains a file description, instructions for extraction, and a script to aid in processing the file parts. Finally, if the .B DSCDIR environmental variable is defined, the user is asked whether or not to move the description file to that directory. .TP xmitBin -post -d \fIa_group \fR-a \fIfollow \fR-f \fIa_file \fR-no0 -verbose \fIa_file \fRis posted (using the posting command specified by \fBPOSTER) \fRto the \fIa_group \fRUseNet newsgroup, with follow-ups directed to the \fIfollow \fRnewsgroup. Script headers and trailers are included in all parts of the posting, but a part 0 is not sent (-no0). Instead, any file description appears at the beginning of part 1. All phases of \fBxmitBin \fRoperation are detailed as they occur (-verbose). .TP xmitBin -d \fIa_friend \fR-f \fIa_file \fR-nosplit -noscript -nd -nc "Bare bones" operation - \fIa_file \fRis sent via e-mail to \fIa_friend, \fRin one unsplit part (-nosplit), with no script header or trailers (-noscript), no description (-nd), and with no confirmation of \fBxmitBin \fRinput arguments (-nc). .TP xmitBin -post -d \fIa_group \fR-as \fIwho_knows \fR-f \fIa_file \fR-split 700 \fIa_file \fRis posted to the \fIa_group \fRUseNet newsgroup, anonymously as some user specified by the data contained in \fIwho_knows\fR.anondat. The file is posted in a series of 700-line data sections (-split 700). .TP xmitBin -d \fIa_friend \fR-f \fIa_file \fR-patch 3-7,9 "Patch parts" "Patch mode" operation - parts 3 through 7 and part 9 of the split version of \fIa_file \fRis sent via e-mail to \fIa_friend, \fRwith the additional Subject: line "Patch parts". This mode of operation is only useful if some error in transmission has occurred as a result of a previous \fBxmitBin \fRrun. Make sure that the split size is the same as in the original transmission, or the data will be garbled beyond hope! .TP xmitBin -d \fIa_friend \fR-f \fIa_file \fR-noencode -l "Raw data" Send \fIa_file \fRto \fIa_friend, \fRwithout first uuencoding the file, and with a label of "{Raw data}" attached to the Subject: line. .SH "FILES" .PD 0 .TP 35 .B $TMPDIR/\fIfileToTransmit\fR:r\fB.UU Temporary uuencode file .TP .B $TMPDIR/=* Temporary split files .TP .B $TMPDIR/\fIfileToTransmit\fR:r\fB.p* Temporary mail/post files .TP .I fileToTransmit\fR:r\fB.dsc .I fileToTransmit\fR`s description file .TP .I fileToTransmit\fR:r\fB.pat .I fileToTransmit\fR`s patch description file .TP .I anonUser\fB.anondat .I anonUser\fR`s data specification file .PD .SH "LIMITATIONS" .B xmitBin currently only recognizes picture files of type GIF, JPEG/JFIF, PM, PBM, XBM, and PIC. All other binary files can be transmitted successfully using .B xmitBin, but only these file types will have automatic file specifications added. When posting anonymously, .B xmitBin can only provide as much anonymity as your posting software will tolerate! Some copies of inews override any input specification of user name or other fields, for example. In this case, a different copy of inews is recommended (you CAN configure your own inews, if you get the sources somehow - this is usually included in CNews distributions, for example). .SH "BUGS" You find `em, we fix `em (deej@cadence.com).