1.2b6 FTP / hack broken

From: Henrik Nordstrom <hno@dont-contact.us>
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 19:15:13 +0100

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The FTP / hack breaks valid URLs, and is a bit confusing...

1. For URL's requiring no CWD commands (files in home directory), the
hack prepends / without even trying to RETR the file...
2. When accessing a "unknown" file/directory, the error message should
be as without the hack.
3. The user never knows that the hack is activated.
4. If the home directory contains the same directory as the root, then
the hack fails.
5. Generated directory listings should have a corrected BASE HREF, but
they don't...

If we should have a / hack, then it should be consistent, and of course
never break valid URLs.

I suggest this / hack sheme:

1. First try the normal way...
2. If not found and URL does not end in / (IS_DIR), then as last resort
try to do a RETR using a full path including / (the hack is only valid
on UNIX style servers anyway), but if this fails show the error message
from step 1.
3. Add the extended error message I sent earlier, to tell the user that
the directory might be available with /%2f/.. prepended to the path..

Advantages:
* The user is informed that the URL used is not valid, when accessing
directories.
* Should not break valid URLs.
* Nothing special needs to be done on "hacked" directory listings (since
we don't generate any...)

Disadvantages:
* The user needs to read the error message, in order to reach the
intended directory listing if /%2f/.. is needed.

I'll try to code up this change this evening.

---
Henrik Nordstr=F6m
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Received on Tue Jul 29 2003 - 13:15:44 MDT

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