Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!xmission!nnrp.xmission!.POSTED.shell.xmission.com!not-for-mail From: gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell Subject: Re: How to convert to pure ASCII Date: Sun, 4 May 2025 18:33:55 -0000 (UTC) Organization: The official candy of the new Millennium Message-ID: References: Injection-Date: Sun, 4 May 2025 18:33:55 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: news.xmission.com; posting-host="shell.xmission.com:166.70.8.4"; logging-data="2879883"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@xmission.com" X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test77 (Sep 1, 2010) Originator: gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) In article , Lew Pitcher 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?= >> >> 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 -