Ftp-WG: NLST vs MLSD

Alun Jones writes:
> The client, in good faith, is passing what it believes is a "directory or 
> other system-specific file group descriptor" given by its user

Incorrect.

Perhaps you're not familiar with the programs in question. We're talking
about the ``mget'' command supported by the BSD ftp program and its
imitators. The mget argument is a wildcard, not a directory name.

Or perhaps you're confused by the phrase ``other system-specific file
group descriptor'' in RFC 959. That's simply recognizing the fact that
some systems back then had other names for directories: disks, mounts,
etc. You would have already realized that this doesn't include wildcards
if you had read RFC 959 more carefully: the same phrase is used for CWD.

Bottom line: Certain client implementors have led the users to believe
that mget * will retrieve all files in the current directory, but they
are not implementing this function correctly.

---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics,
Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago