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Mon, 28 Sep 1992 11:45:36 +0100 |
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Message of Mon,
28 Sep 1992 00:46:29 CDT from "Forum on LISTSERV release 1.7"
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On Mon, 28 Sep 1992 00:46:29 CDT "(David E Boyes)" <[log in to unmask]>
said:
>Is the output of this program compatible with the base64 encoding used
>in the MIME multimedia extensions package for Internet mail?
There does not exist such a thing as a MIME file transfer encoding. What
MIME describes is a base64 encoding system which translates a stream of
binary characters into a stream of printable characters that survive
gateways, and LB64/LISTSERV use exactly that encoding (so that the code
can be reused to provide support for outgoing MIME mail at a later date).
But MIME falls short of describing the *contents* of this stream of
binaries in enough details to be usable for what I have to do. It hints
at the fact that one should not forget to encode the CRLF's when using
base64, but what if I want to transfer binary data? What if I am using
EBCDIC?
>As a futures thing, is LISTSERV support for MIME in the works?
I haven't yet figured out exactly how it can be used (beyond replacing
UUENCODE et al). MIME does not seem to be a working replacement for FTP
or the various BITNET file formats. The only thing that is clear is that
a file (I mean a "real" file, with binaries and non-default file system
parameter requirements) is to be sent as "Content-Type:
application/octet-stream". Yeah, and you still need the good old BITNET
style file formatter to encode and decode the thing, I'm sorry but I
don't call that progress.
>It'd really be neat to have the ability to have my mail reader be able
>to receive files and text messages in the same message and not have to
>worry about figuring out what utility I need to receive/decode/assemble
>various kinds of files.
You mean RECEIVE actually asks you what format the file is in before
receiving it, and you didn't report the bug to IBM? :-)
>One of the PIPES-phreaks here has written a replacement for SENDFILE
>that employs MIME to encapsulate files that might be interesting to look
>at. We've successfully used it to move some pretty large text files
>around -- it might be an interesting base to work from.
You said it - text files. Not indexed word processor dictionary files.
MIME supports "files" in the unix/PC sense only - stream of bytes.
Eric
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