</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term>-b mask</term>
+ <term>-B mask</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Append mask to the list of binary content types; if the message to
- decode has a part of this type the program will pass the part as is,
- without any additional processing.
+ Append mask to the list of binary content types that will be not
+ content-transfer-decoded (will be left as base64 or such).
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term>-B mask</term>
+ <term>-b mask</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Append mask to the list of binary content types that will be not
- content-transfer-decoded (will be left as base64 or such).
+ Append mask to the list of binary content types; if the message to
+ decode has a part of this type the program will
+ content-transfer-decode (base64 or whatever to 8bit binary) it but
+ pass the part as is, without any further processing.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
Append mask to a list of content types to save to a file;
--save-headers saves only decoded headers of the message (or
subpart); --save-body saves only decoded body; --save-message saves
- the entire message (or subpart).
+ the entire message or subpart (headers + body).
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>-O dest_dir</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Set destination directory for the output files. Default is current
- directory.
+ Set destination directory for the output files; the directory must
+ exist. Default is current directory.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
The 5 list options (-Bbeit) require more explanation. They allow a user to
control body decoding with great flexibility. Think about said mail archive;
for example, its maintainer wants to put there only texts, convert
- Postscript/PDF to text, pass HTML and images as is, and ignore everything
- else. Easy:
+ PDF/Postscript to text, pass HTML and images as is (decoding base64 to html
+ but left images in base64), and ignore everything else. Easy:
</para>
<para>
<code language="sh">
- mimedecode.py -t application/postscript -t application/pdf -b text/html
- -b 'image/*' -i '*/*'
+ mimedecode.py -t application/pdf -t application/postscript -b text/html
+ -B 'image/*' -i '*/*'
</code>
</para>
<para>
When the program decodes a message (non-MIME or a non-multipart subpart of a
MIME message), it consults Content-Type header. The content type is searched
- in all 4 lists, in order "text-binary-ignore-error". If found, appropriate
+ in all 5 lists, in order "text-binary-ignore-error". If found, appropriate
action performed. If not found, the program search the same lists for
"type/*" mask (the type of "text/html" is just "text"). If found,
appropriate action performed. If not found, the program search the same
</para>
<para>
- Initially all 4 lists are empty, so without any additional parameters
+ Initially all 5 lists are empty, so without any additional parameters
the program always uses the default decoding.
</para>