#863 Nlist against win. IIS behaves bizar

[Christophe De Clercq]

Hi,
Tested with tcllib 1.9 (ftp 2.4.4)
(Test cases perform different be also 'strange' with
tcllib 1.8) AGAINST A WINDOWS IIS server! When I test
against a Solaris machine everything works fine.

ftp::NList handle ?directory?
When directory is passed I encountered following problems:

Case1: directory has >1 node and NOT ending with a slash
(eg. edidata/Catalog )The resulting files are prefixed
with the entire directory. Correct I think BUT the
filename portion is separared with a backslash (should
be slash). The directory keeps his slash.

Case2: When I append a slash to directory
(edidata/Catalog/). This solves the problem.
(This is the correct behaviour I think.)

Case3: directory is only one node and NOT ending with a
slash (eg. Catalog ) the resulting files are NOT
PREFIXED with the directory name. (which should be I
think, altough not documented)

Case4: When I append a slash to directory
(edidata/Catalog/). This solves the problem
(This is the correct behaviour I think.)

Testcases:
on ftp server directory structure:
editdata/Catalog
Catalog contains some files eg.
einpr45012023322_I.XML einpr45012023322_I.XML

package require ftp

set h_ftp [ftp::Open 10.17.100.239 myUser myPwd -port
23 -mode active]

# Case 1
ftp::NList $h_ftp edidata/Catalog

# Case 2
ftp::NList $h_ftp edidata/Catalog/

ftp::Cd $h_ftp edidata

# Case 3
ftp::NList $h_ftp Catalog

# Case 4
ftp::NList $h_ftp Catalog/

Output AGAINST IIS ftp server WITH the option Directory
listing style = 'MS-DOS':
% package require ftp
2.4.4
%
% set h_ftp [ftp::Open 10.17.100.239 myUser myPwd -port
23 -mode active]
0
%
% # Case 1
% ftp::NList $h_ftp edidata/Catalog
{edidata/Catalog\einpr45012023322_I.XML}
{edidata/Catalog\einpr47121440651_I.XML
}
%
% # Case 2
% ftp::NList $h_ftp edidata/Catalog/
edidata/Catalog/einpr45012023322_I.XML
edidata/Catalog/einpr47121440651_I.XML
%
% ftp::Cd $h_ftp edidata
1
%
% # Case 3
% ftp::NList $h_ftp Catalog
einpr45012023322_I.XML einpr47121440651_I.XML
%
% # Case 4
% ftp::NList $h_ftp Catalog/
Catalog/einpr45012023322_I.XML
Catalog/einpr47121440651_I.XML

Output (OK I think) AGAINST SOLARIS machine (ftpd daemon):

% package require ftp
2.4.4
%
% set h_ftp [ftp::Open srvdev myUser myPwd -port 21
-mode active]
0
%
% # Case 1
% ftp::NList $h_ftp edidata/Catalog
edidata/Catalog/einpr45012023322_I.XML
edidata/Catalog/einpr47121440651_I.XML
%
% # Case 2
% ftp::NList $h_ftp edidata/Catalog/
edidata/Catalog/einpr45012023322_I.XML
edidata/Catalog/einpr47121440651_I.XML
%
% ftp::Cd $h_ftp edidata
1
%
% # Case 3
% ftp::NList $h_ftp Catalog
Catalog/einpr45012023322_I.XML
Catalog/einpr47121440651_I.XML
%
% # Case 4
% ftp::NList $h_ftp Catalog/
Catalog/einpr45012023322_I.XML
Catalog/einpr47121440651_I.XML

Output AGAINST IIS with directory listing style = 'UNIX':
% package require ftp
2.4.4
%
% set h_ftp [ftp::Open 10.17.100.239 els.vedior
mon23oct -port 23 -mode active]
0
% # Case 1
% ftp::NList $h_ftp edidata/Catalog
edidata/Catalog/einpr45012023322_I.XML
edidata/Catalog/einpr47121440651_I.XML
%
% # Case 2
% ftp::NList $h_ftp edidata/Catalog/
edidata/Catalog/einpr45012023322_I.XML
edidata/Catalog/einpr47121440651_I.XML
%
% ftp::Cd $h_ftp edidata
1
%
% # Case 3
% ftp::NList $h_ftp Catalog
einpr45012023322_I.XML einpr47121440651_I.XML
%
% # Case 4
% ftp::NList $h_ftp Catalog/
Catalog/einpr45012023322_I.XML
Catalog/einpr47121440651_I.XML

THIS IS ALMOST CORRECT in "Case 3" the file is not
prefixed with the directory.

My Workarounds:
1) Avoid IIS
2) If IIS: set directory listing to UNIX, and do not
use single node directories (I added an extra directory
level just to avoid this problem)

[Christophe De Clercq]

Logged In: YES
user_id=617750

Extra scenario:
Installed apache ftp server from
http://incubator.apache.org/ftpserver/ on win-xp (all default).

And the output is (as you can see even other behaviour,
nothing is prefixed now):
% package require ftp
2.4.4
%
% set h_ftp [ftp::Open 10.17.101.53 anonymous myPwd -port 21
-mode active]
0
% # Case 1
% ftp::NList $h_ftp edidata/Catalog
einpr45012023322_I.XML einpr47121440651_I.XML
% # Case 2
% ftp::NList $h_ftp edidata/Catalog/
einpr45012023322_I.XML einpr47121440651_I.XML
% ftp::Cd $h_ftp edidata
1
% # Case 3
% ftp::NList $h_ftp Catalog
einpr45012023322_I.XML einpr47121440651_I.XML
% # Case 4
% ftp::NList $h_ftp Catalog/
einpr45012023322_I.XML einpr47121440651_I.XML

[Michael Schlenker]

Logged In: YES
user_id=302287

The ftp packages NList command basically just passes through
whatever it receives from the FTP server, without
postprocessing, so you directly see the server differences
(similar to what you would see if you used a typical command
line ftp client).

The RFC does not make any real assumptions how the returned
filenames have to look like:

NAME LIST (NLST)

This command causes a directory listing to be
sent from
server to user site. The pathname should specify a
directory or other system-specific file group
descriptor; a
null argument implies the current directory.
The server
will return a stream of names of files and no other
information. The data will be transferred in
ASCII or
EBCDIC type over the data connection as valid
pathname
strings separated by <CRLF> or <NL>. (Again the
user must
ensure that the TYPE is correct.) This command
is intended
to return information that can be used by a
program to
further process the files automatically. For
example, in
the implementation of a "multiple get" function.

It talks about 'valid pathname', if the results you see do
not match the description in the RFC the server is buggy.
The exact specification for 'pathname' is vague at best:

pathname

Pathname is defined to be the character string
which must be
input to a file system by a user in order to
identify a file.
Pathname normally contains device and/or directory
names, and
file name specification. FTP does not yet specify
a standard
pathname convention. Each user must follow the
file naming
conventions of the file systems involved in the
transfer.

The only 'safe' way i see is to CD to the working directory
your interested in an invoke the NLIST command there, as
that excludes all directory name prefix issues.

[Christophe De Clercq]

Logged In: YES
user_id=617750

I did some extra testing and I now convinced this is a
ftp-server problem, not a tlclib problem. (thanks mic42 for
the remark)
* If you want to Use set directory listing to UNIX (to solve
backslash problem)
* Always add a slash to the end of a directory when using
NList (solves directory prefixing)

Is this something to add to the doc. as a remark ?