UUCP(1P)

💅 UUCP(1P) — the POSIX Programmer's Manual one, bestie

okay so real talk, this is the POSIX Programmer's Manual page for uucp. Not the Linux one, the POSIX one. iykyk.

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🌸 PROLOG 🌸

This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. Heads up though: the Linux implementation of this interface may differ — so go consult the corresponding Linux manual page for the deets on Linux behavior. Or, plot twist, the interface might not even be implemented on Linux at all. 🙈

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✨ NAME ✨

uucp — system-to-system copy. that's it, that's the whole vibe. copying files between machines, iconic behavior. 👑

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

uucp [-cCdfjmr] [-n user] source-file... destination-file

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So the uucp utility shall copy files named by the source-file argument over to the destination-file argument. and like, the files in question can be chillin' on local or remote systems. no biggie.

now, lowkey important: uucp cannot guarantee support for all character encodings in all circumstances. For example, transmission data may be restricted to 7 bits by the underlying network, 8-bit data and filenames need not be portable to non-internationalized systems, and so on. Under these circumstances, it is recommended that only characters defined in the ISO/IEC 646:1991 standard International Reference Version (equivalent to ASCII) 7-bit range of characters be used, and that only characters defined in the portable filename character set be used for naming files. The protocol for transfer of files is unspecified by POSIX.1‐2008. (yes, unspecified. don't come for me.)

Typical implementations of this utility require a communications line configured to use the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 11, General Terminal Interface — but other communications means may be used too, she's flexible. On systems where there are no available communications means (either temporarily or permanently), this utility shall write an error message describing the problem and exit with a non-zero exit status. it's giving "can't reach you bestie, leaving a note." 💀

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💖 OPTIONS 💖

The uucp utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines. (yes, the guidelines. we respect them here.)

The following options shall be supported:

• -c — Do not copy local file to the spool directory for transfer to the remote machine. this is the default, btw. she's lazy but in a correct way. 💅
• -C — Force the copy of local files to the spool directory for transfer. opposite energy of -c, we love range.
• -d — Make all necessary directories for the file copy. also the default. yes, both of these are defaults, we're just built different.
• -f — Do not make intermediate directories for the file copy. minimal effort, respect.
• -j — Write the job identification string to standard output. This job identification can be used by uustat to obtain the status or terminate a job. so like, screenshot that job id, you'll need it later. 📸
• -m — Send mail to the requester when the copy is completed. a lil "we made it 🫶" notification.
• -n user — Notify user on the remote system that a file was sent. tell the girlies on the other side.
• -r — Do not start the file transfer; just queue the job. queued and unbothered. 🧚

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🌈 OPERANDS 🌈

The following operands shall be supported:

• destination-file, source-file — A pathname of a file to be copied to, or from, respectively. Either name can be a pathname on the local machine, or can have the form:

system-name!pathname

where system-name is taken from a list of system names that uucp knows about. The destination system-name can also be a list of names such as:

system-name!system-name!...!system-name!pathname

in which case, an attempt is made to send the file via the specified route to the destination. ⚠️ Care should be taken to ensure that intermediate nodes in the route are willing to forward information. like, ask permission first, bestie, don't just hop through people's machines.

The shell pattern matching notation characters '?', '*', and "[...]" appearing in pathname shall be expanded on the appropriate system.

Pathnames can be one of:

1. An absolute pathname.
2. A pathname preceded by ~user where user is a login name on the specified system and is replaced by that user's login directory. Note that if an invalid login is specified, the default is to the public directory (called PUBDIR; the actual location of PUBDIR is implementation-defined).
3. A pathname preceded by ~/destination where destination is appended to PUBDIR.

Note: This destination is treated as a filename unless more than one file is being transferred by this request or the destination is already a directory. To ensure that it is a directory, follow the destination with a '/'. For example, ~/dan/ as the destination makes the directory PUBDIR/dan if it does not exist and puts the requested files in that directory. (the trailing slash is the whole trick, don't skip it 💅)

4. Anything else shall be prefixed by the current directory.

If the result is an erroneous pathname for the remote system, the copy shall fail. If the destination-file is a directory, the last part of the source-file name shall be used.

The read, write, and execute permissions given by uucp are implementation-defined. 🤷

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💜 STDIN 💜

Not used. she's not reading your keyboard, she's busy.

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🍓 INPUT FILES 🍓

The files to be copied are regular files. normal files only, no chaos gremlins.

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🌸 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🌸

The following environment variables shall affect the execution of uucp:

• LANG — Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 8.2, Internationalization Variables for the precedence of internationalization variables used to determine the values of locale categories.)
• LC_ALL — If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization variables. she overrides. main character energy fr.
• LC_COLLATE — Determine the locale for the behavior of ranges, equivalence classes, and multi-character collating elements within bracketed filename patterns.
• LC_CTYPE — Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input files) and the behavior of character classes within bracketed filename patterns (for example, "'[[:lower:]]*'").
• LC_MESSAGES — Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error, and informative messages written to standard output.
• NLSPATH — Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES.

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⭐ ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS ⭐

Default. nothing dramatic. 🧘

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💅 STDOUT 💅

Not used.

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🔥 STDERR 🔥

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages. only the drama channel.

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🦋 OUTPUT FILES 🦋

The output files (which may be on other systems) are copies of the input files.

If -m is used, mail files are modified. 📬

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💖 EXTENDED DESCRIPTION 💖

None. moving on, nothing to see here. 💀

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👑 EXIT STATUS 👑

The following exit values shall be returned:

• 0 — Successful completion. slay. ✨
• >0 — An error occurred. 😭

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🎀 CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS 🎀

Default.

The following sections are informative. (aka: not normative, just goss.)

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🌈 APPLICATION USAGE 🌈

This utility is part of the UUCP Utilities option and need not be supported by all implementations. so like, check before you assume, bestie.

The domain of remotely accessible files can (and for obvious security reasons usually should) be severely restricted. lock that down. 🔒

Note that the '!' character in addresses has to be escaped when using csh as a command interpreter because of its history substitution syntax. For ksh and sh the escape is not necessary, but may be used. csh girlies, escape your bangs, I don't make the rules.

As noted above, shell metacharacters appearing in pathnames are expanded on the appropriate system. On an internationalized system, this is done under the control of local settings of LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE. Thus, care should be taken when using bracketed filename patterns, as collation and typing rules may vary from one system to another. Also be aware that certain types of expression (that is, equivalence classes, character classes, and collating symbols) need not be supported on non-internationalized systems. basically: your pattern might mean something else on the other side. vibe check your patterns. 🫶

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🧚 EXAMPLES 🧚

None. no examples, we're just trusting you.

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⭐ RATIONALE ⭐

None.

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🌸 FUTURE DIRECTIONS 🌸

None.

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💜 SEE ALSO 💜

mailx, uuencode, uustat, uux

The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8, Environment Variables, Chapter 11, General Terminal Interface, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines

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📜 COPYRIGHT 📜

Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

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okay that's the whole page, no cap. 💖 this one came to you from IEEE/The Open Group, 2017, and yes the manual is literally called UUCP(1P). go forth and copy files responsibly, bestie. 🦋✨