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From: clipper@csd.uwo.ca (Khun Yee Fung)
Newsgroups: comp.archives.admin
Subject: Some random thoughts on anon. ftp (Re: New version of my ftpd ...)
Message-ID: <9106180246.AA08933@no9sun.csd.uwo.ca>
Date: 18 Jun 91 02:46:59 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 40

>>>>> On 18 Jun 91 01:52:34 GMT, moraes@cs.toronto.edu (Mark Moraes) said:

Mark> - If the location of the file isn't standard, it's annoying.  Some
Mark> sites put it in /, some in /pub, some in /dist, etc.
Mark> 	if ftptest -f ftp.wherever:pub/ls-lR.Z

[stuff deleted]

Mark> The format that my "ftpfilter -l" produces from ls -lR is:

Mark> name bytes YYYYMMDDhhmm

How about this:

name bytes YYYYMMDDhhmm path

"name" is only the file name of the file and "path" is the full path
(relative to ~ftp, of course) of the file. In this way, VMS and other
systems can be included and a single generic program can be used to
get files from whatever machine automatically. This is especially good
for "cd". For example, VMS does not use the "/" notation.  A recursive
ftp program is also very easy to write for machines with such a file,
right? But then we have to worry about some IBM machines that have
flat directory system. Maybe a full grammar to describe such a file so
that we can specify that the machine has a flat directory system, the
machine does not differentiate upper and lower cases, the machine
allows "/" in file names, the machine does not recognize "cd .."
etc.... (Whoa, where am I?)

I like the ftpd of vacs.uwp.wisc.edu too. The idea of a description
file is wonderful to me.

But then, I always think that we should have a separate protocol for
anonymous ftp. Yeah, this is not a popular idea...

Khun Yee
--
     Name: Khun Yee Fung                        Email: clipper@csd.uwo.ca
        Paper mail: Department of Computer Science, Middlesex College
     The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 5B7  CANADA