Re: sftp rename not good.

[Dan O'Reilly <dano%process.com@localhost>]

At 05:35 PM 5/13/2003, Nicolas Williams wrote:
> On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 05:29:51PM -0600, Dan O'Reilly wrote:
> > At 05:20 PM 5/13/2003, Nicolas Williams wrote:
> > >On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 03:22:37PM -0700, Alfred Perlstein wrote:
> > > > Now that scares me. :)  My intention was to gather support for UNIX
> > > > semantics for this, not "whatever rename(2) does on the server".
> > >
> > >If the semantics of file renaming vary so much from platform to
> > >platform, without even the ability to reliably emulate one behaviour on
> > >all those platforms, then either that variance will have to carry
> > >through to SFTP or the SFTP server will have to have a way to tell the
> > >SFTP client what file rename semantics it supports so the client can
> > >choose which to use.
> >
> > Why should the client care at all?  The basic requirement is "support a
> > rename function".  Why should the client *SOFTWARE* (not USER) care how
> > the server system actually performs that?  A VMS system should be allowed
> > to behave as a VMS system should when renaming a file; as should a UNIX
> > system or a Windows system.  That's not client-specific.
>
> If the client doesn't care, then the semantics of rename should be upto
> the server (within some parameters? which parameters?).
>
> But I think the client cares, or, rather, this user cares :) :)

Well, actually, I agree with you, and you've made my point.  The client
doesn't care, but the user does.  And a user on a VMS system will expect
to see things done the way VMS does things, just as a user on a UNIX
system will expect to see things done with way UNIX does things.  So, if
the functionality is left up to the server, it accomplishes that quick
nicely.

I can tell you a common complaint we hear from our users is "why doesn't
this work on VMS as I would expect it to?".  I'm thinking "preemption"
here.  Let the servers work as the servers will, and have the protocol
simply specify "you must support a rename function" (or whatever other
function is at hand).

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+-------------------------------+----------------------------------------+
| Dan O'Reilly                  |  "There are 10 types of people in this |
| Principal Engineer            |   world: those who understand binary   |
| Process Software              |   and those who don't."                |
| http://www.process.com        |                                        |
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