(Here's a question: when using "access-type=anon-ftp", should one put the
leading '/' on the directory spec, or leave it off?)
Are there any circumstances in which it would make a difference? I
think most anon-ftp implementations could probably handle either. But
Normally, the pathname after the host is relative to the ~ftp directory;
that is, the directory you connect to by default when you use ftp.
However, there are a number of ftp servers which map absolute pathnames,
so that you have to first connect via ftp, then cd to something, like
/usr1/ftpfiles/fbh/, before you can access somefile.text. This path is
*not* a subdirectory of ~ftp. You can see the possible confusion... I
suppose you should put the leading slash if the directory is absolute,
not if not.
*BZZZT* All the world's not UNIX. The FTP server on my Unisys 1100
mainframe (while we still had one, anyway) didn't have these fancy
"directory" or "pathname" things. It had
QUALIFIER*FILENAME.ELEMENT/VERSION like names for things in the file
system.
Perhaps someone who knows more about FTP servers could inform us?
This is just plain implementation specific. You specify a string of
characters that happens to work on the FTP server that you reference.
Louis A. Mamakos
University of Maryland, College Park