reformime is a utility for reformatting MIME messages.
Generally, reformime expects to see an
RFC 2045
compliant message on standard input, except in few cases
such as the -m
option.
If no options are given, reformime prints the MIME structure of the message. The output consists of so-called "MIME reference tags", one per line. For example:
This shows that the message contains two different MIME sections. The first line of the MIME structure output will always contain "1", which refers to the entire message. In this case it happens to be a multipart/mixed message. "1.1" refers to the first section of the multipart message, which happens to be a text/plain section. "1.2" refers to the second section of the message, which happens to be an application/octet-stream section.
If the message is not a MIME message, or it does not contain any attachments, reformime prints only "1", that refers to the entire message itself:
Here's the output from reformime when the first part of the message was itself a multipart/alternative section:
Arbitrarily complex MIME constructs are possible.
Parse a delivery status notification MIME message (RFC 1894). reformime expects to see on standard input a MIME message that consists of a delivery status notification, as defined by RFC 1894. reformime reads the message and prints on standard output a list of addresses and their corresponding delivery status, as specified in the delivery status notification. Each line printed by reformime consists of a delivery status, a space, and the address. reformime then terminates with a 0 exit status. reformime produces no output and terminates with an exit status of 1 if the standard input does not contain a delivery status notification.
Like the -d
except that
reformime lists the address
found in the Original-Recipient: header,
if it exists.
Extract the contents of the indicated MIME section, and display it
on standard output.
The -s
option is required when
-e
is specified. If the
indicated section uses either the base64 or
quoted-printable encoding method,
reformime automatically
decodes it. In this case you're better off redirecting the standard output
into a file.
Display MIME information for each section. reformime displays the contents of the Content-Type: header, any encoding used, and the character set. reformime also displays the byte offset in the message where each section starts and ends (and where the actual contents of the section start, after skipping all the headers).
Create a multipart/digest MIME message digest.
Rewrite message, adding or standardizing RFC 2045 MIME headers.
Like -r
but also convert 8bit-encoded
MIME sections to quoted-printable.
Like -r
but also convert
quoted-printable-encoded MIME sections to
8bit.
Display MIME information for this section only.
section is
a MIME specification tag. The -s
option is required if
-e
is also
specified, and is optional with -i
.
Extract the contents of the indicated MIME section to a file.
Pipe the contents of the indicated MIME section to a program.
The -x
and -X
options extract a specific
MIME section to a file or to a pipe to an external program.
Use the -s
option to identify the MIME section
to extract. If the -s
option is not specified,
every MIME section in the message is extracted, one at a time.
quoted-printable and base64 encoding are
automatically decoded.
Interactive extraction. reformime prints the MIME content type of each section. Answer with 'y' or 'Y' to extract the MIME section. Specify the filename at the next prompt. reformime prompts with a default filename. reformime tries to choose the default filename based on the MIME headers, if possible. If not, the default filename will be attachment1.dat (if the -s option is not specified, the next filename will be attachment2.dat, and so on).
Automatic extraction. reformime automatically extracts one or more MIME sections, and saves them to a file. The filename is formed by taking PREFIX, and appending the default filename to it. Note that there's no space between "-x" and "PREFIX". For example:
This command saves MIME sections as files-attachment1.dat, then files-attachment2.dat, etc. reformime tries to append the filename specified in the MIME headers for each section, where possible. reformime replaces all suspect characters with the underscore character.
The -X
option must be the last option to
reformime. reformime runs an external
program prog, and pipes the contents of the MIME section to
the program. reformime sets the environment variable
CONTENT_TYPE
to the MIME content type. The environment
variable FILENAME
gets set to the default filename of
reformime's liking. If the -s
option is
not specified, the program runs once
for every MIME section in the message.
The external program, prog must terminate with a zero
exit status in order for reformime to proceed to the
next MIME section in the message.
In any case, if prog terminates with a non-zero exit
status, reformime terminates with the exit status of
20 plus prog's exit status.
NOTE: | reformime extracts every MIME section in the message
unless the |
The -r
option performs the following actions:
If there is no Mime-Version:, Content-Type:, or Content-Transfer-Encoding: header, reformime adds one.
If the Content-Transfer-Encoding: header contains 8bit or raw, but only seven-bit data is found, reformime changes the Content-Transfer-Encoding header to 7bit.
-r7
does the same thing, but also converts
8bit-encoded content that contains eight-bit characters to
quoted-printable encoding.
-r8
does the same thing, but also converts
quoted-printable-encoded content to
8bit, except in some situations.
The -m
option creates a MIME digest.
reformime reads a list of filenames on standard input.
Each line read from standard input contains the name of a file that is
presumed to contain an RFC 2822-formatted message.
reformime splices all files into a
multipart/digest MIME section,
and writes it to standard output.
The following options do not read a message from standard input. These options process MIME headers via the command line, and are designed to be conveniently used by mail-handling scripts.
Decode a MIME-encoded "header" and print the decoded 8-bit content on standard output. Example:
MIME-encode "text", and print the results
on standard output.
Use the -c
option to specify the character set.
Like the -o option
, except that
text
is a structured header with RFC 2822 addresses.
reformail(1), sendmail(8), mailbot(1), maildrop(1), maildropfilter(5), egrep(1), grep(1), sendmail(8).