Re: ftp mdtm: invalid command

Sorry if it's a silly question, but wouldn't it be better for the FTP
client to support the command names as standardized in IETF RFCs?

Felipe





On Thu, Aug 3, 2023, 04:02 Erik Auerswald <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Thu, Aug 03, 2023 at 12:20:29AM +0200, Simon Josefsson wrote:
> > Erik Auerswald <[email protected]> writes:
> > > On Wed, Aug 02, 2023 at 04:01:00PM -0300, Felipe G. Nievinski wrote:
> > >>
> > >> I'm using the FTP utility, which supposedly supports the MDTM command
> (as
> > >> per section 21.1 Standards of the documentation):
> > >> https://www.gnu.org/software/inetutils/manual/inetutils.html
> > >
> > > This documentation pertains to the FTP server (ftpd).
> > >
> > >> However, when I try mdtm, it complains: "invalid command".
> > >
> > > The FTP client (ftp) does not implement the MDTM command, as
> documented in
> > > <
> https://www.gnu.org/software/inetutils/manual/html_node/Ftp-commands.html
> >.
> >
> > The "modtime" ftp client command uses MDTM, so try this:
> >
> > ftp> modtime myfilename.ext
>
> Thanks, that is interesting!  The descriptions of MDTM and modtime
> are similar:
>
>  * MDTM:
>      show last modification time of file
>
>  * modtime file-name:
>      Show the last modification time of the file on the remote machine.
>
> It seems as if the FTP client often uses longer, more human friendly
> command names instead of the respective server request names.  As such
> it seems as if "modtime" in the client is "MDTM" in the server.  The code
> for ftp/cmds.c::modtime seems to confirm that.
>
> As such the answer to the original question is:
>
>     "MDTM" is spelled "modtime" in the FTP client.
>
> I have learned something today. :-)
>
> Best regards,
> Erik
>