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authorJacob McDonnell <jacob@jacobmcdonnell.com>2026-04-25 21:07:28 -0400
committerJacob McDonnell <jacob@jacobmcdonnell.com>2026-04-25 21:07:28 -0400
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docs: Added UNIX V10 Manuals
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+.TH BTOA 1 local
+.SH NAME
+btoa, atob, tarmail, untarmail \- encode/decode binary to printable ASCII
+.SH SYNOPSIS
+.B btoa
+.br
+.B atob
+.br
+.B tarmail
+who subject files ...
+.br
+.B untarmail
+[ file ]
+.SH DESCRIPTION
+.I Btoa
+is a filter that reads anything from the standard input, and encodes it into
+printable ASCII on the standard output. It also attaches a header and checksum
+information used by the reverse filter
+.I atob
+to find the start of the data and to check integrity.
+.PP
+.I Atob
+reads an encoded file, strips off any leading and
+trailing lines added by mailers, and recreates a copy of the original file
+on the standard output.
+.I Atob
+gives NO output (and exits with an error message) if its input is garbage or
+the checksums do not check.
+.PP
+.I Tarmail
+is a shell script that tar's up all the given files, pipes them
+through
+.IR compress ","
+.IR btoa ","
+and mails them to the given person with the given subject phrase. For
+example:
+.PP
+.in 1i
+tarmail ralph "here it is ralph" foo.c a.out
+.in -1i
+.PP
+Will package up files "foo.c" and "a.out" and mail them to "ralph" using
+subject "here it is ralph". Notice the quotes on the subject. They are
+necessary to make it one argument to the shell.
+.PP
+.I Tarmail
+with no args will print a short message reminding you what the required args
+are. When the mail is received at the other end, that person should use
+mail to save the message in some temporary file name (say "xx").
+Then saying "untarmail xx"
+will decode the message and untar it.
+.I Untarmail
+can also be used as a filter. By using
+.IR tarmail ","
+binary files and
+entire directory structures can be easily transmitted between machines.
+Naturally, you should understand what tar itself does before you use
+.IR tarmail "."
+.PP
+Other uses:
+.PP
+compress < secrets | crypt | btoa | mail ralph
+.PP
+will mail the encrypted contents of the file "secrets" to ralph. If ralph
+knows the encryption key, he can decode it by saving the mail (say in "xx"),
+and then running:
+.PP
+atob < xx | crypt | uncompress
+.PP
+(crypt requests the key from the terminal,
+and the "secrets" come out on the terminal).
+.SH AUTHOR
+Paul Rutter (modified by Joe Orost)
+.SH FEATURES
+.I Btoa
+uses a compact base-85 encoding so that
+4 bytes are encoded into 5 characters (file is expanded by 25%).
+As a special case, 32-bit zero is encoded as one character. This encoding
+produces less output than
+.IR uuencode "(1)."
+.SH "SEE ALSO"
+compress(1), crypt(1), uuencode(1), mail(1)