File encoding strategy question

[John Machin]

Andrew > I would like to be able to view the contents of the file if it
is text
while still maintaining the ability to transmit binary data.

Like Dennis said ... and once you have read the RFC and understood it
thoroughly :-) don't start writing code; it's one of the included
batteries -- but beware of file size expansion for binary data:

>>> import quopri
>>> a = ''.join(chr(x) for x in range(256))
>>> b = quopri.encodestring(a)
>>> c = quopri.decodestring(b)
>>> [len(x) for x in a,b,c]
[256, 530, 256]
>>> a == c
True
>>> b
'\x00\x01\x02\x03\x04\x05\x06\x07\x08=09\n\x0b\x0c\r\x0e\x0f\x10\x11\x12\x13\x14
\x15\x16\x17\x18\x19\x1a\x1b\x1c\x1d\x1e\x1f
!"#$%&\'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=3D>?@
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRS=\nTUVWXYZ[\\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~=7F=80=81=82=8
3=84=85=86=87=88=\n=89=8A=8B=8C=8D=8E=8F=90=91=92=93=94=95=96=97=98=99=9A=9B=9C=
9D=9E=9F=A0=A1=\n=A2=A3=A4=A5=A6=A7=A8=A9=AA=AB=AC=AD=AE=AF=B0=B1=B2=B3=B4=B5=B6
=B7=B8=B9=BA=\n=BB=BC=BD=BE=BF=C0=C1=C2=C3=C4=C5=C6=C7=C8=C9=CA=CB=CC=CD=CE=CF=D
0=D1=D2=D3=\n=D4=D5=D6=D7=D8=D9=DA=DB=DC=DD=DE=DF=E0=E1=E2=E3=E4=E5=E6=E7=E8=E9=
EA=EB=EC=\n=ED=EE=EF=F0=F1=F2=F3=F4=F5=F6=F7=F8=F9=FA=FB=FC=FD=FE=FF'
>>>

HTH,
John