Subject: RE: Additional thoughts on text transfers

From: Jeffrey Altman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2002 21:05:47 EST

> On Mon, 1 Apr 2002, Richard Whalen wrote:
> 
> > Text files are still in high usage, even with new (often proprietary)
> > formats that may not be converted.
> 
> How/why can filexfer be expected to know about all these?
> 
> -d
> 
> 

The Kermit Project implemented in C-Kermit 8.0 algorithms for
examining files that can determine if the file is 7-bit text, 8-bit
text, UTF-8, or UCS2/UCS4 with various byte orderings.  These
algorithms are highly accurate and do not rely on any proprietary
knowledge of file naming conventions or operating system attributes.
If the file is text it will be transfered as such, if it is not it is
transfered as binary.  

The only text files that cannot be transfered with conversions are
those that include mixtures of text and binary.  These files must be
transfered as binary as we do not translate only portions of files.
I'm not aware of any other tool that allows automated mid-stream
translation.

- Jeff

 Jeffrey Altman * Sr.Software Designer      C-Kermit 8.0 available now!!!
 The Kermit Project @ Columbia University   includes Telnet, FTP and HTTP
 http://www.kermit-project.org/             secured with Kerberos, SRP, and 
 [email-masked]                OpenSSL. Interfaces with OpenSSH

---

From: Damien Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 12:24:22 +1000 (EST)

> I'm not aware of any other tool that allows automated mid-stream

That kinda proves the point that I was trying to make - that the format
decision and processing can be built into the clients (or servers) and not
into the protocol itself.

filexfer's beauty is its simplicity as a binary-only file transfer 
protocol. IMO it should be burdened with application level cruft that 
can be better handled in the application.

-d