Dealing with binhex'ed files

Dealing with `binhex`'ed files

You've just received a file in in the mail saying something like

    (This file must be converted with BinHex 4.0)

at the top. This file was most likely produced on a Mac and will most likely be useful on a Mac. The best thing to do would be to bring it to a Mac and work with it there.

"But I want to look at it under Unix!"

Ok, here's what to try. Your first instinct would be to look for binhex or unxbin. They both live on /usr/local/cap on any of aramis, athos, or porthos. But that is not what you want. They both convert files to binhex format. Instead, you need mcvert.

    /usr/local/cap/mcvert filename
    Converting     temp1                 type = "TEXT", author = "ttxt"

This leavs you a Mac binary file, temp1.bin. You convert this to a Unix file with m2u.
/usr/local/cap/m2u temp1.bin
Assuming it was a text type file, you should now be able to look at temp1.bin. It may need a little editing, like removing a bit of garbage at the beginning.
This page last updated October 17, 1997.