Naming/Format conventions for INDEX files

[Markus Stumpf <[e-mail]>]

Hello folx!

In Germany we plan to standardize (sp?) the format and naming of ftp-server
index files! This is a sensitive area as it should support all OS platforms.

FORMAT:
-------

Currently we are discussing a format, which could easily be generated
by GNU find, which runs (and is designed to run) on a wide variety of
platforms!

The current format looks like (comments welcome)
     512        1991-02-25 19:50        /pub/BSD/4.3-tcpip/
  447001        1991-02-06 14:10        /pub/BSD/4.3-tcpip/bind-4.8.3.Z
      31        1992-07-18 15:59        /pub/BSD/386BSD/0.1 -> ../../../public2/BSD/386BSD/0.1

It is generated by the command:

FORMAT="%8s\t%TY-%Tm-%Td %TH:%TM\t%p"
/usr/local/bin/gfind /pub \( -type d -printf "$FORMAT/\n" \) \
			-o  \( -type f -printf "$FORMAT\n" \) \
			-o  \( -type l -printf "$FORMAT -> %l\n" \)

The first entry is the size in Bytes, the second is the file creation date,
the third is hours and minutes of file creation and the last entry is the
name of the file.
The name of the file is built so that directories are postfixed with a "/",
all symbolic links get a " -> <linked_to_file>" appended; all else are plain
files.

Now the questions:
- Do you think this format can be supported on all platforms?
- What do you think about the format of the "date" field?
  Should it be changed to a "ls" conforming format (which would make
  sorting by date really ugly !!)
- Is this suitable for ARCHIE (or how complicated would it be to make
  ARCHIE understand this format; this is a serious aspect as there is a
  German ARCHIE-Server under construction ;-) )


NAMING CONVENTIONS:
-------------------

No proposals on the names so far!
To reduce net-load we would like to urge each ftp-site to generate daily
and/or weekly diffs of their index files. This would also reduce the amount
of work to update the ARCHIE database we hope!
Not using 'ls' will also shrink the size of these diffs, as the date/time
information is always the same and does not change the format as it does
with files older than 1/2 year when using 'ls'.

What we need are location and names for all the files!

I think this is a topic that should be included to IAFA, as the earlier
we standardize the format, the less difficulties we'll hopefully have
to get the people to using this format!

Ciao
	\Maex
-- 
______________________________________________________________________________
 Markus Stumpf                        [e-mail]