On Mon, 26 Jan 2015, Mike Luther wrote to Mark Lewis:

 ml>  MikeL> Can anyone here suggest what tool in OS/2 can 
 ml> handle base64 Email 
 ml>  MikeL> message work? 

 ml> in what manner? just reading as a client or processing 
 ml> 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)