


ext::MIME-Base64:PerltProgrammerext::MIME-Base64::QuotedPrint(3p)


NAME
       MIME::QuotedPrint - Encoding and decoding of
       quoted-printable strings

SYNOPSIS
        use MIME::QuotedPrint;

        $encoded = encode_qp($decoded);
        $decoded = decode_qp($encoded);

DESCRIPTION
       This module provides functions to encode and decode
       strings into and from the quoted-printable encoding
       specified in RFC 2045 - MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
       Extensions).  The quoted-printable encoding is intended to
       represent data that largely consists of bytes that
       correspond to printable characters in the ASCII character
       set.  Each non-printable character (as defined by English
       Americans) is represented by a triplet consisting of the
       character "=" followed by two hexadecimal digits.

       The following functions are provided:

       encode_qp($str)
       encode_qp($str, $eol)
       encode_qp($str, $eol, $binmode)
           This function returns an encoded version of the string
           ($str) given as argument.

           The second argument ($eol) is the line-ending sequence
           to use.  It is optional and defaults to "\n".  Every
           occurrence of "\n" is replaced with this string, and
           it is also used for additional "soft line breaks" to
           ensure that no line end up longer than 76 characters.
           Pass it as "\015\012" to produce data suitable for
           external consumption.  The string "\r\n" produces the
           same result on many platforms, but not all.

           The third argument ($binmode) will select binary mode
           if passed as a TRUE value.  In binary mode "\n" will
           be encoded in the same way as any other non-printable
           character.  This ensures that a decoder will end up
           with exactly the same string whatever line ending
           sequence it uses.  In general it is preferable to use
           the base64 encoding for binary data; see MIME::Base64.

           An $eol of "" (the empty string) is special.  In this
           case, no "soft line breaks" are introduced and binary
           mode is effectively enabled so that any "\n" in the
           original data is encoded as well.

       decode_qp($str);
           This function returns the plain text version of the
           string given as argument.  The lines of the result are



perl v5.10.1                2009-10-12                          1





ext::MIME-Base64:PerltProgrammerext::MIME-Base64::QuotedPrint(3p)


           "\n" terminated, even if the $str argument contains
           "\r\n" terminated lines.

       If you prefer not to import these routines into your
       namespace, you can call them as:

         use MIME::QuotedPrint ();
         $encoded = MIME::QuotedPrint::encode($decoded);
         $decoded = MIME::QuotedPrint::decode($encoded);

       Perl v5.8 and better allow extended Unicode characters in
       strings.  Such strings cannot be encoded directly, as the
       quoted-printable encoding is only defined for single-byte
       characters.  The solution is to use the Encode module to
       select the byte encoding you want.  For example:

           use MIME::QuotedPrint qw(encode_qp);
           use Encode qw(encode);

           $encoded = encode_qp(encode("UTF-8", "\x{FFFF}\n"));
           print $encoded;

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright 1995-1997,2002-2004 Gisle Aas.

       This library is free software; you can redistribute it
       and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO
       MIME::Base64



























perl v5.10.1                2009-10-12                          2


