[Info-vax] Streaming a File on OpenVMS with Caché

[Steven Schweda]

> 1)  By using BINARY or ASCII modes correctly.  This will tell
> the VMS FTP software whether to create 512 byte blocks of
> whatever bytes arrive, or variable length text records where
> separation happens between records is located based on
> FTP's standard for delimiting such.

   Perhaps you didn't notice, but the OP got a
variable-length record format, apparently from an ASCII FTP
transfer, while I got a Stream_LF file from an ASCII FTP
transfer.

   My point was that the FTP server (somehow) determines what
kind of file it creates.  The FTP client may influence it,
but does not determine it.


> If you tell him the format it needs to be in and how to
> transfer it so that it will not get changed along the way you
> won't have to "reconstitute" it.

   An FTP server _always_ reconstitutes a file sent from a
client.  The file _data_ get transferred, not the file
itself.  In ASCII-mode FTP, line endings (and character
encoding?) may get changed, but either way, the FTP server
creates a brand-new file according to its own methods.

   The original (detail-free) complaint suggested that the
file attributes were bad.  There are way to adjust them, but
it's a fantasy to believe that an arbitrary FTP client has
complete control over what an arbitrary FTP server does,
especially regarding the meta-data on the files created
("reconstituted") by the server.

> [...] reality is reality.

   Some people perceive it differently.  For example, some
people believe that FTP transfers a _file_, not file _data_. 
If that were true here, then the VMS file would have the
same attributes as the client file (that is, none), which is
clearly not the case.  (Yes, File Transfer Protocol is a
slight misnomer, but it does describe the usual effect.)