On Mon, 26 Jan 2015, Mike Luther wrote to Mark Lewis:
MikeL> Can anyone here suggest what tool in OS/2 can
handle base64 Email
MikeL> message work?
in what manner? just reading as a client or processing
into text for posting to a FTN message base?
MikeL> issues. The test work is working fine now. However, the
MikeL> standard Panda Email that comes forward to 'register' the 2015
MikeL> product appears to be bound to what is 'base64' code which
MikeL> contains data the operator is supposed to read and work with to
MikeL> use. But I can't 'visualize' that in OS/2.
ok, so what you are after is, in simple terms, a mime or base64 decoder...
TBH, your email reader should be able to do this by default out of the box... that is, if you are using a ""traditional"" email reader... text based or GUI... my pine and alpine stuff can as well as a few other text based ones i've
messed with (on *nix)... there may be a setting for this in whatever it is that
you use... but maybe not and especially not if you are using FTN software to read your emails...
so that takes us to three options...
O1. feed that base64 data block into an online web-based decoder.
O2. feed that base64 data block to a local decoder tool.
O3. feed that email/base64 block to a self-written tool of your own design.
S1. there are several web sites available that you can use... sometimes i have to try a couple before i find one that works because the block may not conform exactly to what they expect. uncle google points me the way most of the time.
S2. i found, somewhere, a UUDEVIEW/UUENVIEW set of tools written by frank pilhofer that i have used to decode mimed schtuff in emails... the date on the stuff i have appears to be in 1996... UUDEVIEW has worked for me on numerous items but some things it did not like... especially working with mime stuff where the headers containing the neccesary ingrediants must be available and they weren't always like it expected in the files i was feeding it...
S3. i wrote a tool using free pascal that decodes mime stuffs and even goes so far as to replace html entities with their CP437 counterparts
eg: © -> (c)
i used a library called synapse... mainly for several reasons... one being that
i was going to need it for another application that had to access https servers
and execute REST queries for data retrieval... the currently operating application though, runs as a ""filter"" to my FTN<->internet mail and news gateway... it processes emails addressed to certain addresses and formats them for posting in fidonet echomail areas... if you are a pascal coder, you might do similar and create your own local decoder that operates how you need it to with the email data you feed it...
those are the three options i can think of right off hand... at least one of them will help you solve your problem... well, there's four, actually, if your email reader can decode it on the fly for you...
FWIW: even plain html is being sent as base64 encoded data blocks these days...
not only binary pictures or registration keys or similar... being able to decode base64 data is a must in today's world...
FWIW2: i don't think that this is wed to microsoft's mess in the least... i think a lot of it has to do with lazy coders and having to use this neat trick or that one for the most simple of operations ;)
HTH
)\/(ark
* Origin: (1:3634/12)