ecc.1

Error Correcting Code algorithms, for use whit E

.TH ECC 1 "June 9,1992"
.AT 3
.SH NAME
ecc \-\- Reed \- Solomon Error Correcting Coder
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B ecc
[
.B \-edv
] 
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Ecc
reads blocks of bytes from stdin, applies the (255,249,7) Reed - Solomon
Error Correcting block code, and writes the resulting block to stdout.
Ecc is capable of correcting three byte errors in a block of 255 bytes,
and is capable of detecting more severe errors.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B \-e
Read blocks of 248 bytes or less from stdin, and encode them, generating six 
bytes of redundancy.  A 256 byte code block is then written to stdout, 
consisting of an ASCII letter G, a length byte, 248 bytes read from stdin and
padded as necessary, and the six redundancy bytes.
.TP
.B \-d
Read blocks of 256 bytes from stdin, and decode them.  Any errors discovered
during the decoding process are reported to stderr.  The number of bytes
indicated by the length byte are then written to stdout.
.TP
.B \-v
Write the 
.I ecc
version number to stderr.
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
.TP
.I "nn byte error in block xx."
.I Ecc
found nn error bytes in consecutive block xx, and was able to correct the
errors.
.TP
.I "unrecoverable error in block xx."
Four or more errors were detected in consecutive block xx.  The flawed block
is written uncorrected to stdout.
.TP
.I "sync error in block xx."
The block sync character G was not found.  This usually means bytes were
added or subtracted from the stream of coded blocks.
.SH AUTHOR
Paul Flaherty ([e-mail])
.SH "SEE ALSO"
uuencode(1),dd(1)
.SH BUGS
Doesn't automatically correct dropped bytes.