kelvin@thed.uk22.bull.com (Kelvin Hill) (06/30/91)
Has anyone else had bad files received from the info-server @ newcastle over the last few days? I've tried packdir and translator 6.61 and both files came back un-sparkable. I did notice thatthe sparkives had no CR (0x0d)s in them at all. Have they been stripped, and if so, is it my end or newcastles? I also notice that newcastle is taking up to 4 days to ship stuff back after requesting it. Again, is anyone else noticing this or is itjust me? Kelvin. -- Kelvin J. Hill - BULL HN Information System Ltd, Hounslow, England, UK. Internet - kelvin@thed.uk22.bull.com | UUCP - kelvin@cix.compulink.co.uk "" kelvin@kelvin.uk22.bull.com | AMPRnet - kelvin@g1emm.ampr.org
gtoal@castle.ed.ac.uk (G Toal) (06/30/91)
In article <kelvin.678222954@thed.uk22.bull.com> kelvin@thed.uk22.bull.com (Kelvin Hill) writes:
:Has anyone else had bad files received from the info-server @ newcastle
:over the last few days? I've tried packdir and translator 6.61 and both
:files came back un-sparkable. I did notice thatthe sparkives had no
:CR (0x0d)s in them at all. Have they been stripped, and if so, is it
:my end or newcastles?
:I also notice that newcastle is taking up to 4 days to ship stuff back
:after requesting it. Again, is anyone else noticing this or is itjust me?
:
:Kelvin.
:
Albert has already posted once saying that if he gets files sent
to him which are not already compressed, he .tar.Z's them. So feed
your file through compress -d and tar xv in that order.
The delays aren't from Newcastle -- they're from Britains extremely
damp piece of wet string at nsfnet-relay which goes down more often
than Linda Lovelace :-(
G
PS Why would you expect CR's? This isn't DOS, you know...kelvin@thed.uk22.bull.com (Kelvin Hill) (06/30/91)
In <11369@castle.ed.ac.uk> gtoal@castle.ed.ac.uk (G Toal) writes: >Albert has already posted once saying that if he gets files sent >to him which are not already compressed, he .tar.Z's them. So feed >your file through compress -d and tar xv in that order. The files *are* Spark archives. I ran them both thru a visual check and !Sparkinfo. They are just damaged archives. What I am trying to figure out is wether they were damaged before Albert got them, or if it's the info server damaging them. >The delays aren't from Newcastle -- they're from Britains extremely >damp piece of wet string at nsfnet-relay which goes down more often >than Linda Lovelace :-( Aha, I thought it might be that... thanks for the confirmation. >G >PS Why would you expect CR's? This isn't DOS, you know... In any Sparkive I would expect to see a fairly even spread of all binary values present, otherwise the compression is not doing the full job. If there is one particular binary value missing, then it's a reasonable assumption that somewhere, something has selectively stripped that value out. For example, a DOS to UNIX file conversion/file transfer could have done it. There are lots of LFs in the files, but not one single CR... comments? Kelvin. -- Kelvin J. Hill - BULL HN Information System Ltd, Hounslow, England, UK. Internet - kelvin@thed.uk22.bull.com | UUCP - kelvin@cix.compulink.co.uk "" kelvin@kelvin.uk22.bull.com | AMPRnet - kelvin@g1emm.ampr.org
gtoal@tardis.computer-science.edinburgh.ac.uk (07/01/91)
In article <kelvin.678281900@thed.uk22.bull.com> kelvin@thed.uk22.bull.com (Kelvin Hill) writes:
:In any Sparkive I would expect to see a fairly even spread of all binary
:values present, otherwise the compression is not doing the full job.
:If there is one particular binary value missing, then it's a reasonable
:assumption that somewhere, something has selectively stripped that value out.
:For example, a DOS to UNIX file conversion/file transfer could have done it.
:There are lots of LFs in the files, but not one single CR... comments?
I think you've nailed it. I suspect someone has kermitted the file
to their net machine without setting binary mode. Moral: always encode
your files *before* they leave your machine.
Just out of interest, which program was it? Maybe the author could
re-send it?
Graham