NAME¶
munpack - unpack messages in MIME or split-uuencode format
SYNOPSIS¶
munpack [
-f ] [
-q ] [
-t ] [
-C
directory ] [
filename ... ]
DESCRIPTION¶
The
munpack program reads each RFC-822 message
filename and writes
all non-text MIME parts or split-uuencoded files as files. If no filename
argument is given,
munpack reads from standard input.
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.
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".
OPTIONS¶
- -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, munpack appends ".1", ".2", etc to
find a nonexistent file.
- -q
- Be quiet. Suppresses messages about saving partial messages
and about messages with no interesting information.
- -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.
- -C directory
- Change the current directory to directory before
reading any files. This is useful when invoking munpack from a mail
or news reader.
DECODING MIME¶
To decode a MIME message, first save it to a text file. If possible, save it
with all headers included.
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.
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).
There must be exactly one message per file.
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.
To decode a message, run the command:
- munpack file
where "file" is the name of the file containing the message. More than
one filename may be specified,
munpack will try to decode the message
in each file. For more information on ways to run
munpack, see the
section "OPTIONS" above.
ENVIRONMENT¶
- TMPDIR
- Directory to store temporary files. Default is
/var/tmp.
FILES¶
- $TMPDIR/m-prts-$USER/
- Directory used to store partial messages awaiting
reassembly.