How Do I decode a MIME section manually?

[banjo]

I recently received an email from a Mac computer.

The email has a .pdf file embedded in it in MIME

format, and Kmail will not display it as an attachment.

 

If I view the email in plain text format, I can see the

MIME section, so I know that it is there. It starts

out like this:

 

--MS_Mac_OE_3147240150_3640249_MIME_Part--





--MS_Mac_OE_3147240150_3640249_MIME_Part

Content-type: application/pdf; name="Rau_Fall_2003.pdf";

x-mac-creator="4341524F";

x-mac-type="50444620"

Content-disposition: attachment

Content-transfer-encoding: base64



JVBERi0xLjQNJeLjz9MNCjM1NCAwIG9iag08PCANL0xpbmVhcml6ZWQgMSANL08gMzU2IA0v

SCBbIDIyMDcgMzM0IF0gDS9MIDE3MTIyODcgDS9FIDM0MTQzNSANL04gNSANL1QgMTcwNTA4



.....   etc...............

 

After the header I can see the MIME encoded

data.

 

The other parts of the email are MIME types that

are text/plain and text/html, and Kmail has no

trouble decoding and displaying them.

 

Does anybody here know if I can use some other

tool to decode this document? I am not familiar

enough with the innards of email and MIME

to figure it out.

 

Thanks in advance

Banjo

(_)=='=~

 

BTW, I found out quite by accident (I went for

shift key and bumped the 'v' key...... don't ask)

that Kmail will show the actual text of a message

by selecting the message in the message list

and typing the 'v' key.

 

Very kewl

[banjo]

Just in case anybody else is interested in this

I thought I would post my progress trying to

unpack an errant email with an invisible attachment.

 

I captured the email in a .txt file so that I can

mess with it. After a few hours of research I

found mpack-1.5-9.i686.rpm and installed it.

This installs mpack and munpack, which are

tools to pack and unpack MIME parts.

These are old CLI tools from the dark ages

of email.

 

I ran munpack against my text file like this:

 

~/apps/mpack>munpack raumail.txt

Did not find anything to unpack from raumail.txt

 

This is consistent with what my readers are

telling me................ that the attachment is not there.

But when I open the text file and scroll down

to the section where the attachment resides,

the MIME part is there along with all the base64

codes and 2.2 Meg of junk.

 

To test a bit further, I sent myself a different

email with an attachment of a zip file. I converted

that email into a text file and ran munpack against

it. It extracted the .zip file just fine.

 

So, now I am off to compare the two email files

to see why the Mac-generated file thinks that

it has no attachment. They both look very similar

in content.

 

I am learning a lot about the nitty-gritty of

the innards of email. Pretty scary.

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

[banjo]

Well, I finally got my attachment from the email.

Suspecting that something was wrong with the

headers in the original, I edited the other message

(the one that worked), deleting the base64 code that

was there and replacing it with the base64 code from

the errant message. So, if all is well, I should have

the .pdf data stored in the other message using

the other file name etc.

 

Then, I used munpack to extract the new data.

It worked fine, so I changed the file name back to

a .pdf file and I can read it using Adobe.

 

:D

 

I did not figure out exactly what is wrong with the

MIME headers in the original message. I guess I

won't because I have no idea how to start debugging

something like that.

 

But I have my file. Do I get to stop being a

NOObie now? :lol:

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

[mystified]

Do I get to stop being a

NOObie now?  :lol: 

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

 

:lol: Thanks for posting your progress. I'm sure someday somebody else will have the problem and find your thread very useful. As far as being a noobie you can change your title anytime you want. Just pm one of us admins and we'll be happy to do it. :)