topic Re: ftp files to a Windows server in Operating System - OpenVMS

ftp files to a Windows server

Zeljko Popovic — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 04:44:52 GMT

When files are transferred the time/date stamp is changed to the time of transfer. Would it be possible for the transferred files to maintain their original time/date stamp.

Re: ftp files to a Windows server

Kumar_Sanjay — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:33:08 GMT

Are you transtering from VMS to Windows System? or Windows to VMS system.?

Re: ftp files to a Windows server

Steven Schweda — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 06:06:21 GMT

In general, FTP can't do this. Some FTP
clients (wget, for example), can try to
fetch and interpret a directory listing from
the server, and set the date-time accordingly
when it fetches a file.

Because so many FTP servers use a UNIX-like
"ls -l" listing format, which tends to trade
mm:ss for yyyy whan a file gets old, this is
not a very reliable method. On the other
end, not all fancy FTP clients can make sense
of a VMS-style directory listing.
Everything's complicated.

If accurate date-time data are valuable, it
would be much safer to use something like
Zip to archive the files, then transfer the
archive, and, finally, unpack the archive on
the destination system.

> Are you transtering from [..]

Better yet, if you don't like the Zip method,
on which system is the FTP client, and on
which is the FTP server? Then, which way are
the files moving, to the client or from the
client?

I believe that some relatively new FTP RFC
supports this sort of thing, but finding
clients and servers which can do it will
probably be difficult.

Re: ftp files to a Windows server

Richard Whalen — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:25:28 GMT

As stated above, FTP generally uses the transfer date for files transferred to the system. Some clients and servers can use the FTP MDTM command to get the file modification time and then set it locally based upon the information returned. Not all servers support the MDTM command though.

Re: ftp files to a Windows server

John Gillings — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 23:17:34 GMT

Zeljko,

It may help to give the exact command(s) you're using. The convention of the COPY command on OpenVMS is to set the creation date to the time of the original file, if the target filename is defaulted to the input filename. If the target filename is specified (even if it's the same as the input), the creation date is the time of the copy.

Re: ftp files to a Windows server

Zeljko Popovic — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 23:21:48 GMT

I'm trasnfering from VMS to a Windows server,I will the zip/unzip method if the user is happy with that then I will implement if not then I will investigate further thank you all for your quick response.

Re: ftp files to a Windows server

Steven Schweda — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:35:45 GMT

> It may help to give the exact command(s)
> you're using.

Probably not.

> The convention of the COPY command on
> OpenVMS is to set the creation date to the
> time of the original file, if the target
> filename is defaulted to the input
> filename. [...]

Let me guess. You haven't actually tried
this using COPY /FTP.

He _did_ say "ftp", you realize.

> I'm trasnfering from VMS to a Windows
> server [...]

That answers half of the important questions.
Try again.

Re: ftp files to a Windows server

Zeljko Popovic — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:59:18 GMT

set def HTDATADSK1:[WFPROD.WFUSERS.WFPROD]
$ ftp novell-ftp
.username password
mput
*.pro
bye
$!

Re: ftp files to a Windows server

Steven Schweda — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 04:48:27 GMT

> mput

Ok. The FTP client is on the VMS system, so
programs like wget are of no use (unless you
can arrange to run the FTP client on the
destination system, and even then there might
be time-zone problems with standard wget
programs).

> [...] I will the zip/unzip method [...]

That still sounds to me like the best way.