unixunpk.man

.TH MUNPACK 1
.SH NAME
munpack \- unpack messages in MIME or split-uuencode format
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B munpack
[
.B \-f
]
[
.B \-q
]
[
.B \-t
]
[
.B \-r
.I character
]
[
.B \-C
.I directory
]
[
.I "filename \&..."
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
The 
.I munpack
program reads each RFC-822 message
.I filename
and writes all non-text MIME parts or split-uuencoded files as files.
If no filename argument is given, 
.B munpack
reads from standard input.
.LP
If the message suggests a file name to use for the imbedded part, that
name is cleaned of potential problem characters and used for the
output file.  If the suggested filename includes subdirectories, they
will be created as necessary.
If the message does not suggest a file name, the names
"part1", "part2", etc are used in sequence.
.LP
If the imbedded part was preceded with textual information, that
information is also written to a file.  The file is named the same as
the imbedded part, with any filename extension replaced with ".desc".
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B \-f
Force overwriting of existing files.  If a message suggests a file
name of an existing file, the file will be overwritten.  Without this
flag,
.B
munpack
appends ".1", ".2", etc to find a nonexistent file.
.TP
.B \-q
Be quiet.  Suppresses messages about saving partial messages and about
messages with no interesting information.
.TP
.B \-t
Also write the text MIME parts of multipart messages as files.  By
default, text parts that do not have a filename parameter do not get
unpacked.  This option effectively disables the ".desc" file feature
for MIME messages.
.TP
.BI \-r " character"
If the suggested filename contains invalid characters, they are
replaced with this character. The default replacement character is
"X".
.TP
.BI \-C " directory"
Change the current directory to 
.I directory
before reading any files.  This is useful when invoking 
.B munpack
from a mail or news reader.
.SH "DECODING MIME"
.LP
To decode a MIME message, first save it to a text file.  If possible,
save it with all headers included.  
.I Munpack
can decode some MIME files
when the headers are missing or incomplete, other files it cannot
decode without having the information in the headers.  In general,
messages which have a statement at the beginning that they are in MIME
format can be decoded without the headers.  Messages which have been
split into multiple parts generally require all headers in order to be
reassembled and decoded.
.LP
Some LAN-based mail systems and some mail providers (including America
Online, as of the writing of this document) place the mail headers at
the bottom of the message, instead of at the top of the message.  If
you are having problems decoding a MIME message on such a system, you
need to convert the mail back into the standard format by removing the
system's nonstandard headers and moving the standard Internet headers
at the top of the message (separated from the message body with a
blank line).
.LP
There must be exactly one message per file.  
.I Munpack
cannot deal with
multiple messages in a single file, to decode things correctly it must
know when one message ends and the next one begins.
.LP
To decode a message, run the command:
.IP
.IB munpack " file"
.LP
where "file" is the name of the file containing the message.  More than
one filename may be specified,
.I munpack
will try to decode the message in
each file.  For more information on ways to run
.IR munpack ,
see the section "OPTIONS" above.
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.TP
.B TMPDIR
Directory to store temporary files.  Default is /var/tmp.
.SH FILES
.TP
.B $TMPDIR/m-prts-$USER/
Directory used to store partial messages awaiting reassembly.