Practical UNIX

Modifying Files or Pipelines

Several commands let you modify or transform the contents of files or pipelines. The crypt command scrambles the contents of sensitive files so that no one else can read them unless they have the key to unscramble them. This command has not kept pace with hackers because of government regulations on encryption software. In a similar fashion, the standard UNIX compress command is behind the times. The government, however, is not worried about compression software falling into the wrong hands, so there are newer better compression commands (gzip and bzip2) that will be presented. Finally a third modification command will be discussed. uuencode was once the standard method to transform a binary file into printable text ...