[wplug] Off-the-wall Question on FTP

[Rob Knapp]

On Tue, 2006-03-07 at 08:39 -0500, Eric Cooper wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 07, 2006 at 12:14:38AM -0500, Diana A. Clarion wrote:
> > I notice that one can attempt to retrieve a
> > file several directories removed from the remote CWD, but if one does not
> > specify a local file name and a similar tree does not exist locally, the
> > client goes *boof* (technical term).
> 
> Broken client, I'd say:

I'd agree.  A few years ago, I wrote a very small ftp client library for
python.  (ftplib having to many dependencies for our needs.)

IIRC, the protocol does not define anything about the local files.
(default names, paths, etc.) All the server does is get the commands and
serve the file out.  As a client, you get the bites and are thankful for
them.  Whatever you do after that point is up to you as the author of
the client.  (You know, redirect the bytes to the soundcard, insert them
randomly in a file, whatever you're little heart desires.)

Of course, that was in 2003, so it's quite possible that I'm
mis-remembering.


>     $ ncftp debian.mirrors.pair.com
>     [...]
>     ncftp / > get dists/etch/Release.gpg
>     [...]
>     $ ls -l Release.gpg
>     -rw-r--r--  1 ecc ecc 189 Mar  6 16:29 Release.gpg
>