cpw%sneezy@LANL.GOV (C. Philip Wood) (02/01/89)
Agreed; there is no way to transfer an arbitrary "Vendor" file which has attributes stuffed in other parts of the file system (like UNIX inodes) with the current FTP standard with out falling back on an administrative hack using pre and post-processor's. Would it be useful to consider a new standard which would allow for a eXternal File Representation XFR "on-the-wire"? We have a Central File Store (CFS) at LANL which allows for "user maintained" control information (file attributes). This is not XFR by any means, but it allows VMS, CTSS, etc. systems to save files on CFS and get them back with the correct attributes. However, the file is not transportable between different operating systems. An XFR would allow for this. A "standard" representation of a text file has been defined. A user can pre-process the file and store it on CFS in "stext" (standard text) format. However, it is up to the user of the file, after he gets it, to "ntext" (native text) it. I'm not suggesting this as a mechanism! Just throwing out some ideas. Phil