FTP in ASCII mode

[Ed Hon]

I had an HP-UX log file (text), which I ftp'd to a Windows NT PC, once in binary mode and once in ascii mode. Using a Windows text viewer, the binary mode file appeared all jammed up, which I expected. The ascii mode file appeared neat and clean like a report. What is ascii mode looking for in the byte stream to convert and how does it know how to convert it?

[Helen French]

May be Bill's answer in this thread will help you:

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x8d0f8f960573d611abdb0090277a778c,00.html

[John Palmer]

Hi Ed,

The main difference is that Windows uses the two byte sequence of CR LF to indicate end of record, UNIX uses the single byte LF.

Windows therefore thinks that a UNIX file is a single record - hence the 'jammed up' appearance.

Regards,
John

[Stefan Farrelly · Accepted solution]

Unix files always use EOL characters (the LF character) for each line termination while DOS ASCII files will have CR and LF at the end of each line.

You can use the dos2ux and ux2dos commands can produce either form.

[Rory R Hammond]

If you Wordpad instead of notepad the binary version will look ok. MS wordpad appears to be angnostic about cr/lf lf or cr.

Rory