RE: Naming/Format conventions for INDEX files

["George D. Greenwade" <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, 27 Jul 92 13:36:56 +0200, Markus Stumpf
<[e-mail]> posted:
> Why don't we collect a list of the formats the FTP programs of the various
> OSs support/need to retrieve files?

Yes!!  This would be a very good first step in getting things to work
properly.  

> I'd like to know which commands to use for the VMS/FTP, to retrieve e.g.
> the above mentioned file MX_ROOT:[MLF]00README.TXT;1!

ftp vms.server.somewhere
get mx_root:[mlf]00readme.txt
-or-
cd mx_root:[mlf]
get 00readme.txt
-or- 
for the file MX_ROOT:[MLF.SUBDIR]11README.TXT
get mx_root:[mlf.subdir]11readme.txt
-or-
cd mx_root:[mlf]
get [.subdir]11readme.txt
-or-
cd mx_root:[mlf]
cd mx_root:[.subdir]
get 11readme.txt

Really, it's pretty simple.  You have a device (whatever is preceded by the
":"), a directory (whatever is in the field delimited by "[" and "]"), and
a filename (whatever follows the "]").  The version extension (whatever
follows ";") is omitted as the latest file is retrieved, unless you specify
a specific version number.  Everything following the standard ftp
client/server commands above (the "cd" and "get") are totally case
insensitive -- I used lowercase in the examples as it's merely easier to
read (at least to me) -- and yes, this means that case sensitivity in
filenames is a no-no (i.e. Makefile, MAKEFILE, makefile, MakeFile, and all
other case variations are MAKEFILE. [with the required period!] to VMS).

Anonymous ftp to our Niord.SHSU.edu (192.92.115.8) or to ymir.claremont.edu
or to tex.ac.uk or to ftp.spc.edu and look around -- all of these are VMS
machines (and there are quite a few others; these just come to mind
quickly).

> Why Unix?? And I think this is an really important topic! What does an ftp
> archive give to me (oh, my bad english) that has a lot of good software,
> but which makes it nearly impossible for me to retrieve it in an acceptable
> amout of time!

Precisely my point!  From reading the drafts, it is my opinion that the
driving force has been Unix, at least to date.  I have no problems with
that; however, I do have problems when it is assumed that Unix works
everywhere.  Again, if you try multiple periods (file.tar.Z), you're dead
-- VMS, plain and simple, will not support this (and again, I issue the
challenge for someone to make me a liar on this -- I would love to have
multiple-part filenaming available on VMS, with controllable periods).

> And the amount of time needed, is in my experience, strongly dependant from
> the quality of the index file! And a standardized format of this file could
> make this time decreasing!

I agree that the index ought to be a standard -- it should be trivial to
write something on any operating system to output a standard format --
essentially sorting fields into the proper area (on VMS, which reports
512-byte blocks for filesizes, it should even be easy to get approximate
byte sizes, if that's what is desired).  What we need is to identify what
can go in which fields to support other OS'es, such as VMS.

Regards,   George
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George D. Greenwade, Ph.D.                            Bitnet:  BED_GDG@SHSU
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