On 20/02/16 18:14, Eric Pruitt wrote: > Regardless of > how I ultimately choose to implement PGP support in my mail client, I > would still like to have the questions I asked addressed to understand > how GPG handles command line flags.
Fine by me. The difference is that --verify never produces any data output, whereas you use --decrypt to get at the contents of the message. So for instance, the following message is unencrypted but signed. But you cannot discover what the message is with --verify, since it will just tell you it's a good signature. You use --decrypt to actually look at the contents. -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: GnuPG v2 owEBYgGd/pANAwAIAZaeAY/ebNyhAcsyYgBWyKS3VGhlIHF1aWNrIGJyb3duIGZv eCBqdW1wcyBvdmVyIHRoZSBsYXp5IGRvZwqJARwEAAEIAAYFAlbIpLcACgkQlp4B j95s3KGPwwf/bI0Ma3wZV1UOx5ZHtRsMjaCSB/4ntNs0HDh4MPjllRK+/kiQx8I5 7d2dPkfufq3ULS/usgHx3Fyuc/JFywS/rnZBKzhO7X/oBbl26UsHm+WNd5CXHCGP VhiuxcmorgLNPG0Wb8MPPN8KByrhdhv+j8t4wzwki6sbMAoTQm0fZM03YKtCEKcE xtI4PNz/xxAI/2y1qhlzKfRXttnsnuSJp0rTGufct64AWG2/S9r47Yn/XPC/Vxv1 uslPGXA8PuqWiF9Ik+xCgCgkmbh6emzCD3SrMlnu4qJ88GkrxmdCDf5Kut7w3foa UkGJ7QnEdRXGYbJJpIiQqF8ZIejMkQDdxw== =hAWk -----END PGP MESSAGE----- This one isn't even signed; it's just data. -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: GnuPG v2 owE7bZTEEHZiWUxIRqpCYWlmcrZCUlF+eZ5CWn6FQlZpbkGxQn5ZapFCCVA6J7Gq UiElP50LAA== =fx76 -----END PGP MESSAGE----- So --decrypt is: gimme the contents. --verify is: check the validity, but don't ever produce any data. But since you ultimately need to choose a reasonably short name for the option, they're not called --decrypt-verify-or-decode and --verify-only ;). HTH, Peter. -- I use the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) in combination with Enigmail. You can send me encrypted mail if you want some privacy. My key is available at <http://digitalbrains.com/2012/openpgp-key-peter> _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
