Sender: rich AT phekda DOT freeserve DOT co DOT uk
Message-ID: <39BA7F93.F9633B4A@phekda.freeserve.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 09 Sep 2000 19:21:08 +0100
From: Richard Dawe <rich AT phekda DOT freeserve DOT co DOT uk>
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To: James W Sager Iii <sager+@andrew.cmu.edu>
CC: Kalum Somaratna aka Grendel <kalum AT lintux DOT cx>,
        DJGPP newsgroup <djgpp AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Re: 2 things(windows short cuts, and copying files)
References: <Pine DOT LNX DOT 4 DOT 21 DOT 0009092118330 DOT 599-100000 AT goatbeard DOT grendel DOT net>
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Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

Hello.

Kalum Somaratna aka Grendel wrote:
> AFAIK FTP is a very good File Tranfer Protocol indeed. It should be very
> easy to transfer binary or text files using FTP.

Unfortunately libsocket has a bug which broke an FTP program I was trying
to port to libsocket (sitecopy). Essentially the problem is in the way
libsocket forcibly closes TCP connections - this is only an issue when
using libsocket with Winsock 2. Please see:

    http://www.phekda.freeserve.co.uk/richdawe/lsck/doc/bugs.txt

Someone has recently found another way to use Winsock 2 from DOS boxes, so
I will update libsocket at some point to use that (*). It should not
suffer from the closing connection bug.

(*) Don't hold your breath while you wait.

If you design a file transfer protocol, you should close the connection
automatically on receipt/transmission of all data. That way you avoid the
close bug.

Another problem you will encounter is that libsocket's Winsock 2 interface
will hang after 32K has been transferred/received. There is no known way
round this.

Hope that helps and doesn't depress you, bye,

-- 
Richard Dawe
[ mailto:richdawe AT bigfoot DOT com | http://www.bigfoot.com/~richdawe/ ]