hidden character ?

[Bob Stockler]

Dennis Malen wrote (on Wed, Jan 11, 2006 at 06:28:20PM -0500):

| I have been using a binary FTP for about 1 and 1/2 years. Before that 
| ASCII. My experience has been that I had more errors in ascii as filepro 
| had trouble reading the records being imported, than I did in binary. The 
| only problem I do have periodically is the "?". I am able to overcome that 
| problem with filepro programming by using the len command and re-writing to 
| the field the same info.
| 
| In any event, in my environment (AIX) binary seems to be more reliable.

Dennis, FTP is a univeral File Transfer Protocol that I'm SURE
IBM implemented properly (the only REALLY dumb thing I've ever
known them to do was to make the deal they did with Bill Gates
when they were preparing to introduce the IBM PC).

The only way FTP can fail to handle the CR-NL -vs- NL-only line
endings in text files is if the user neglects to assure that it's
in ASCII or Binary Mode before the file transfer is begun.

In Binary Mode FTP transfers files with absolutely no translation.

In ASCII Mode (which should be used ONLY for text files) when FTP
transfers files it translates CR-NL line ending files to NL-only
line ending files and vice-versa according to which way the transfer
is being made.

Every FTP program I've ever met allows for setting it up to come
up in either ASCII or Binary Mode by default, and then the user
is responsible to assure it's in the proper mode for the current
task.

For most of my use of FTP I use NcFTP on my Windows XP Pro on
my laptop, and have it set to default to Binary Mode, because
most of my file transfers will be from UNIX systems, and then
I transfer them to my SCO UNIX system (so no translating of
line endings is required).  (I do it this way for the convenience
of being able to sit in my family room at my laptop on the coffee
table, with the fireplace across the room, the TV to its left,
and a beautiful view out of the window wall left of the TV.)

However, when I transfer filePro stuff between my laptop and my
UNIX system, I have to be careful whether NcFTP is in ASCII or
Binary Mode.  Though they'll work either ways, processing tables
(saved with ABE=ASCII) are better transferred in Binary Mode
(I'm not sure about tables saved with ABE=""; I haven't tried it,
but they might be corrupted by translation of possible hex 0a's
in the encrypted tables).

filePro User Menus (though they also work either way) are also
better transferred in Binary Mode (if not, they can't be used
with my MENU EDIT II program, because an ASCII Mode transfer
will add CRs to the Menu's three ssgments, making them longer
than the 4719 bytes my MENU EDIT II program expects).

README.txt, etc., files are better transfered in ASCII Mode.

It's simple.  Get used to it, and don't blame it on IBM - I'm
an IBM shareholder, and I resent that (accounting for this
long diatribe).

Bob (who has only the one bitch, expressed above, with IBM)

PS - I'm even happy with the deal IBM made with Lenovo - my
     ThinkPad support is as good or better than it was, and
     I think it may be good for the shares I hold in IBM.

-- 
Bob Stockler  +-+  bob at trebor.iglou.com  +-+  http://members.iglou.com/trebor
Author: MENU EDIT II - The BEST Creator/Editor/Manager for filePro User Menus.
Fully functional (time-limited) demos available by email request (specify OS).