Re: A text transfer mode is needed for the SSH File Transfer Protocol

[Simon Tatham <anakin%pobox.com@localhost>]

Joel Jaeggli  <joelja%darkwing.uoregon.edu@localhost> wrote:
> a file transfer application should not alter files. it makes it very hard 
> to do things like compute the md5sums of  a file before and after transfer

Err, but if you actually need to transfer a file in text mode, your
ability to check its md5sum after transfer isn't really going to
make up for the fact that the file hasn't arrived in the form you
needed it in!

> I think what seems to bug people is that sftp isn't a drop-in replacement 
> ftp. why should it, there are lots of things that are obsolete or just 
> plain bad about ftp.

True. But the _ability_ to transfer files in text mode is not one of
them. Among FTP's problems are the use of multiple network
connections in today's NAT-and-firewall-heavy world, the absence of
secure authentication, the difficulty of automating complex client
scripts because servers aren't required to give back directory
information in a standardised way, and the fact that text-mode
transfer is the default state whereas most files transferred are
binary compressed archives of some form or another. SFTP fixes all
of these while introducing all sorts of useful features of its own
(random access being a good example); but the _ability_ to do text-
mode transfers is not a failing of FTP.
-- 
Simon Tatham         "Every person has a thinking part that wonders what
<anakin%pobox.com@localhost>    the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking about."