Ftp-WG: Potentially unsound use of MDTM

I'm receiving reports from some of my users that some FTP clients (and 
presumably FTP servers also?) attempt to use the MDTM command not just to 
display a file's time, but to _modify_ it.

The format used is the sadly ambiguous "MDTM yyyymmddhhmmss[.fraction] 
filename".

Since file names can have spaces, and may start with digits, there's a 
possibility of overlap, wherein it is not possible to say whether the 
command received is to set the time on one file, or display the time for 
another.  Granted, this confusion would require that a file "yyyymmddhhmmss 
xyz" exists in the same folder as one called "xyz", but I think that's not 
sufficiently unlikely for me to feel comfortable with implementing this 
extension to the FTP protocol.

What are your feelings on this?  Am I being too anal-retentive?  Is there a 
need for an FTP command to set the modification time on a file (presumably 
so as to allow files to be uploaded with their original modification dates, 
but perhaps for other reasons)?  [One or two of my potential users seem to 
think so, at least]  Is it worth proposing a more standardised, and 
unambiguous, command sequence, to forestall this possibly causing problems 
in future?  While I can't see any means to use this ambiguity as an attack, 
I do find that many sources of error come from different handlings of 
ambiguously stated 'standards'.

Alun.
~~~~
--
Texas Imperial Software   | Try WFTPD, the Windows FTP Server. Find us at
1602 Harvest Moon Place   | http://www.wftpd.com or email [email protected]
Cedar Park TX 78613-1419  | VISA/MC accepted.  NT-based sites, be sure to
Fax/Voice +1(512)258-9858 | read details of WFTPD Pro for NT.