Example usage of uufiles

We have an example below showing the usage of uufiles on Unix, the procedure is broadly similar on other systems. You will need to download and install uufiles for your platform first.

Recall that uufiles is intended to make a single package containing all your files, compress it and convert the result so that it can be safely sent by email. If you are confident that you know how to use tar, gzip, and uuencode, then you could accomplish these steps manually. Nothing magic happens when using uufiles.

There is no point in using uufiles unless you are sending the resulting package by email, in other cases you should simply use tar and gzip.

The example commands are in bold below. The dollar sign $ at the beginning of the line is just meant to be a Unix shell prompt, so don't type that. Your system prompt may be different.

1. Change to the directory containing your paper.

   $ cd MyPapers
$ ls
figure1.ps figure2.ps paper.tex


2. Invoke the uufiles script.

   $ uufiles


   When the script asks for the directory, enter "." (= dot, which stands for the current directory)

   directory with files to be archived: .


   When the script asks for the files, specify just the files you want to include and no others. If you are submitting a single file, just give its name.

   files (e.g. *.ps, file1 file2 file3, or * for all): paper.tex figure1.ps figure2.ps


   Enter a reasonable name for the resulting file that you'll be sending by email,

   output file (will create name.tar.gz uuencoded as name.uu) name: submit

   After this, uufiles will take a short time to make your output file,

   Switching to directory . and creating file submit.uu from
figure1.ps figure2.ps paper.tex

finished. to invert: uudecode submit.uu gunzip -c submit.tar.gz | tar -xvf - (or gnutar zxvf submit.tar.gz)
or execute csh submit.uu (which removes submit.uu and submit.tar.gz)


3. Now check that your uuencoded file can be unpacked correctly. Make a clean, empty, temporary directory somewhere and copy the file there.

   $ mkdir ~/tmp
$ cp submit.uu ~/tmp
$ cd ~/tmp
$ ls
submit.uu

   First uudecode the file,

   $ uudecode submit.uu


   Then unzip and untar it,

   $ gunzip submit.tar.gz
$ tar xvf submit.tar
paper.tex
figure1.ps
figure2.ps


   Check that all the necessary files are present and that no unnecessary files were included. If there are any unnecessary files go back and make the uufile again, without the unnecessary files.

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