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mr.entropy

Member

Registered: 2010-10-29

Posts: 10

[SOLVED] Character encoding conversion

Hi, my first post here...
I'm writing a shell script (using tcl/expect) to show mails on pop server.
How do I convert e-mail headers containing text like this:

Subject: =?iso-8859-1?B?ZGl2ZXJ0aW1lbnRvIHNlbnphIGZpbmUgMjQgb3JlIHN1IDI0?=

to make it readable?
I already tried with 'iconv' and 'recode' with no luck...
Thanks.

Last edited by mr.entropy (2010-11-02 16:34:39)

skanky

Member

From: WAIS

Registered: 2009-10-23

Posts: 1,847

Re: [SOLVED] Character encoding conversion

These subjects have (probably unnecessarily) been encoded according to RFC 2047.

The "B" in between the 2nd and 3rd ? indicates that it is encoded using Base64 (if there's a Q it's "Quoted-Printable" see RFC RFC 2045).

So you're looking for a Base64 decoder.

EDIT: and there happens to be one in coreutils. 

man base64

Last edited by skanky (2010-11-02 14:39:06)

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"...one cannot be angry when one looks at a penguin."  - John Ruskin
"Life in general is a bit shit, and so too is the internet. And that's all there is." - scepticisle

enrique

Member

Registered: 2005-10-25

Posts: 95

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Character encoding conversion

You can check this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1260 … ail-header it should be enough to point you in the right direction

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Kind regards, enrique

skunktrader

Member

From: Brisbane, Australia

Registered: 2010-02-14

Posts: 1,580

Re: [SOLVED] Character encoding conversion

echo "ZGl2ZXJ0aW1lbnRvIHNlbnphIGZpbmUgMjQgb3JlIHN1IDI0" | base64 -d
divertimento senza fine 24 ore su 24

mr.entropy

Member

Registered: 2010-10-29

Posts: 10

Re: [SOLVED] Character encoding conversion

Thank you guys, very quick solution