Ftp-WG: NLST vs MLSD

At 12:26 PM 10/16/2002, D. J. Bernstein wrote:
>Frank da Cruz writes:
> > OK, I think we're finished here.
>
>No. We've discovered that there's an interoperability failure between
>your client and some servers. The servers are complying with RFC 959,
>so the fault lies with your client. Your client has to be fixed.

Actually, it seems that server _and_ client are complying with RFC 959.

The client, in good faith, is passing what it believes is a "directory or 
other system-specific file group descriptor" given by its user, to the 
server.  The server sees an NLST command that holds such a "directory or 
other system-specific file group descriptor", and responds with a set of 
file names.  The client parses through each file name, and fetches them one 
by one.

RFC 959 does not specify that the "system-specific file group descriptor" 
is only to mean a folder, directory, or other containing unit.  It does not 
specify that it cannot be a wildcard.  "*.txt" would seem to be a valid 
"system-specific file group descriptor", describing, as it does, a group of 
files in a system-specific manner.  The original author may have intended 
it to mean "directory" only, but then why say "directory _or_ 
system-specific file group descriptor"?  Sadly, at least one of the authors 
of RFC 959 is beyond our questions.

Certainly it's risky passing a wildcard to the server - the risk is that 
the server says something akin to "I don't know what you're talking about", 
and nothing is transferred.  But I don't think it's counter to RFC 959.

If anything needs to be fixed to be compliant with RFC 959 (and I don't 
think it does), it's the user who thinks he can pass a wildcard spec in to 
his FTP client, and have it passed onto, and interpreted by, his server.

Alun.
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