Re: ftp mdtm: invalid command

Simon Josefsson via Bug reports for the GNU Internet utilities <[email protected]> Fri, 04 Aug 2023 10:44:48 +0200

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.gnu.inetutils.bugs
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

"Felipe G. Nievinski" <[email protected]> writes:

> 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?

I don't think that is better -- the "names" in the RFCs are cryptic
protocol names, usually not useful for a human interface.  The "modtime"
command as FTP client command has a long history, and for those who
prefer the RFC names the 'quote MDTM foo' is already available.
Increasing the command namespace increases the cognitive load on users
to comprehend the tool, which is already rather complex.

/Simon

> 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
>>

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