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From: gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: How to convert <binaryGlowMixedWithASCII> to pure ASCII
Date: Sun, 4 May 2025 18:33:55 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: The official candy of the new Millennium
Message-ID: <vv8buj$2nscb$2@news.xmission.com>
References: <vv8asa$2nscb$1@news.xmission.com> <vv8bb2$2f5m5$2@dont-email.me>
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Originator: gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack)

In article <vv8bb2$2f5m5$2@dont-email.me>,
Lew Pitcher  <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca> wrote:
>On Sun, 04 May 2025 18:15:38 +0000, Kenny McCormack wrote:
>
>> I am often faced with this problem.
>> 
>> I have a string like (this was the "From" address of an email I recently received):
>> 
>>     =?utf-8?B?UGhpbGxpcCBHw7xudGVy?= <s69pguen@uni-bonn.de>
>> 
>> Note that this may not be the ideal example, but it is the one closest to
>> hand.  Here's another example:
>> 
>>     TF-8?q?Theyre_telling_us_something_about_something_ok?
>> 
>> when it should have been just:
>> 
>>     They're telling us something about something ok?
>> 
>> My question is: Is there a (Unix/Linux) tool that will reliably fix this?
>> I.e. convert the binary glop format into the desired, pure ASCII, format.
>
>What you are looking at is the "punycode"[1] expression of a non-ASCII character
>sequence.

Yup.  I've never heard the term "punycode" before, but it sounds appropriate.

>AFAIK, there aren't any /standard/ utilities that convert to and from punycode.
>However, there are /libraries/ that handle punycode (libidn[2], for one).

"standard" doesn't really matter much to me.  If there is a tool out there,
in any form, from any source, I'd like to hear about it.

Generally, when there is a library to do something, there is a program
written to access the functionality in that library - i.e., a "thin
wrapper" around the library.  Sounds like that program is what I am looking
for.

-- 
Kenny, I'll ask you to stop using quotes of mine as taglines.

    - Rick C Hodgin -