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Archive-name: ForthFaq/ANSinfo
Last-modified: 31.May.93
Version: 1.2
What is this dpANS and what happened to BASIS?
dpANS is a draft proposed Ansi National Standard. The BASIS documents
were the internal working documents of the Forth Technical Committee
X3.J14. Prior to this, to my knowlege, the internal working documents
of any ANSI Technical Committees were not released to the public.
X3.J14 broke new ground by not only making those documents available,
but by making them available electronicly. X3.J14 has now made the
Forth dpANS available for public review. While the first two dpANS
documents were only available in print form, the 5th is now available
electronicly. See below for more info on dpANS 5.
Where can I get a copy of the dpANS, and comment upon it?
From: gvb@med3.minerva.com (Greg Bailey)
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 23:05 PDT
The attached is a copy of the README document which defines the
procedures for this public review.
This document is named READMEd5.txt on the FTP servers.
These procedures MUST be followed for the electronic
public review (so states X3 secretariat who are being
bold enough to permit this at all!)
----------------------- cut here -----------------------------
X3J14/93-006 - Procedures for Pilot Electronic Public Review 31 Mar 93
PROCEDURES FOR THE
PILOT ELECTRONIC PUBLIC REVIEW
of X3.215-199x
WARNING:
X3 is TESTING - note, TESTING - an electronic public review.
The success of the test is dependent upon adherence to these
procedures. PLEASE NOTIFY THE X3 SECRETARIAT as issues with
this test are identified. Please notify Dan Arnold
75300.2354@CompuServe.COM or by telephone 1-202-626-5747.
Applicability:
These procedures will be used during the review period from
4/02/93 through 6/01/93 for Programming Language - Forth
(X3.215-199x).
Introduction:
This review period will be supported by the tools developed
within the global networking community for collaborative
efforts. These tools will be deployed in parallel with a
previously planned effort on the proprietary Compuserve
public time sharing computer system.
Goals:
The objective of this review is to obtain the widest
practicable review of the draft document and to obtain all
available input as to text corrections and internal
inconsistencies. This should be done efficiently and with
due controls as desired by X3. Participants should register
so that they can be notified of future developments with
regard to this proposed standard. Participants are asked to
pay $20.00 per copy to X3 for the purpose of helping to
defray its administrative costs.
1. Posting of the draft document.
The "official" copies of X3.215-199x will be posted on the
Internet in an anonymous FTP host playground.sun.com in the
directory pub/incoming . This directory contains at least
the following files:
READMEd5.txt Accompanying cover memorandum (This document).
x3-215d5.ps Postscript of the draft.
x3-215d5.ps.Z Postscript compressed by unix utility.
x3-215d5.ps.ZIP Postscript compressed by popular PC utility.
FORMATd5.txt If present, describes additional file formats.
An "official" copy may be obtained via direct FTP from the
above host ONLY, or via the mail resources ftpmail or bitftp
for those who lack direct Internet access. Anyone
retrieving the official document should obtain this README
document and comply with its requests.
A001-01G ansforth-request@minerva.com [Page 1]
X3J14/93-006 - Procedures for Pilot Electronic Public Review 31 Mar 93
Obviously, anyone is capable of reposting these files.
Anyone doing so is strongly asked to repost ALL of the
above, and any others that are identified in FORMATd5.txt,
with no alterations of course. This possibility jeopardizes
the test of electronic public review; please note that the
X3 secretariat will consider the range of sources for the
files in its review of this pilot.
2. Registration of Reviewers.
Each person obtaining a copy of the dpANS is strongly urged
to register with X3. Please send the form in appendix A of
this memo by electronic mail if you are able to do so.
Otherwise it may be sent via facsimile or postal mail using
the information on the form. Registered reviewers will be
added to a mailing list for announcement of future revisions
submitted for public review.
Send your registration via electronic mail to the following
Internet address: ansforth-request@minerva.com and direct
any problems you might be having to postmaster@minerva.com .
Please be sure to fill in the form completely, especially
including your fax number, if any, and mailing address
(REQUIRED!) EXPLICITLY include the best e-mail address and
routing, if relevant, for reaching you from the Internet.
You will receive with minimum delay a message asking that
you verify our ability to reach you. Please respond as
requested in this message.
When X3J14 has received your response, you will be
registered with X3J14 and added to the appropriate
mailgroups. ONLY those people who have registered
completely via e-mail will be included in these groups. If
you work for a large organization or are part of a local
group of interested parties in a remote location, and are
willing to manage a mail exploder to minimize network
traffic, please simply register your exploder as the
mailgroup address on the form, and advise those who you plan
to service to register the same exploder address on their
forms. The person responsible for the exploder should
identify him/herself as such and become fully registered
before others attempt registration using that exploder. It
is IMPORTANT that each reviewing INDIVIDUAL should register,
even when sharing a mail exploder.
2.1 Voluntary contribution.
Reviewers are requested to make a voluntary contribution of
$20.00 per copy directly to X3 at the time of registration
or access, as a fee toward defraying the administrative
costs they incur in helping technical committes such as ours
produce standards.
The US standardization process is normally funded by the
participants in the development of each standard. The
members of X3J14 pay fees annually to X3 for administrative
costs, as well as covering all the costs of operating the
technical committee itself. Many of these costs directly
track the volume of review comments received and acted upon.
In the interest of making the X3 review process more
globally accessible than it now is, X3 is conducting this
experiment in this
A001-01G ansforth-request@minerva.com [Page 2]
X3J14/93-006 - Procedures for Pilot Electronic Public Review 31 Mar 93
case to gauge the effectiveness of a voluntary payment program.
In order for X3 to collect valid data, it is important that
you register whether or not you make a contribution. No
penalties or prejudice will apply to anyone who elects not
to contribute, but the number of such registrations will be
useful in estimating the ability of such a program to pay
for itself.
If you intend to make a contribution, then depending on how you
register:
- If mailing registration, just include contribution;
- If faxing registration, mail the contribution with
your name to the address shown for mail registration;
- If registering electronically, mail the contribution
according to instructions you will receive in your
confirmation.
3. Submitting Comments.
Two sorts of comments are welcomed by this Technical Committee.
3.1 Formal Public Review Comments (PRC's).
A PRC is a document submitted by you to the TC through X3
which is fully governed by all due process rules of X3
procedure, under which you have specific rights to promote
and defend your point of view. These have customarily been
submitted in writing to X3, and this practice continues. X3
procedures specifically apply to hard-copy documents.
As an experiment, PRC's may be submitted to X3J14
electronically. However, in order to do so you MUST have
gone through the complete registration procedure. This is
required so that we have confidence we can reply to you.
You must also have supplied a valid postal mailing address.
Normal mailings will be sent to you at this address. The
procedure for submitting an electronic PRC is to send
electronic mail to ansforth-prc@minerva.com . The PRC will
be forwarded to the X3 Secretariat for registration, and
when it has been accepted by the Secretariat you will
receive a receipt via e- mail. Each PRC that is registered
and assigned a PRC number will be announced via a posting to
the mailgroup. If you do not receive a receipt in a
reasonable amount of time considering your connectivity,
send an inquiry to the same mailing address. Please do not
send a second copy of the PRC unless you are asked to do so.
A001-01G ansforth-request@minerva.com [Page 3]
X3J14/93-006 - Procedures for Pilot Electronic Public Review 31 Mar 93
3.2 Friendly Collaboration.
Less formal contributions and constructive discussion may
take place on the ansforth mailgroup. E-mail sent to
ansforth@minerva.com will be forwarded to all addresses on
the mailing list. Note that this is a simple explosion
operation, not a listserv type processor. Hence minimal
transformation occurs to headers. Please take care when
doing "reply" operations to this list.
ansforth is moderated passively. The moderator's policy is
to permit unrestricted postings unless the traffic indicates
that a more active role is necessary. The purpose of the
list is to complete work on the document in a cooperative
fashion, specifically with respect to text unclarities,
mistakes, and internal inconsistencies. Inappropriate
postings will be regulated using one or more of the
available tools. The moderator may be reached at
ansforth-request.
A001-01G ansforth-request@minerva.com [Page 4]
X3J14/93-006 - Procedures for Pilot Electronic Public Review 31 Mar 93
A. X3J14 PUBLIC REVIEW REGISTRATION FORM.
To: ansforth-request@minerva.com
Subject: Register for Public Review.
X3 Secretariat, CBEMA (202) 737-8888 voice
1250 Eye Street, NW 638-4922 \ fax
Suite 200 628-2829 /
Washington, DC 20005
Please register me as a reviewer for dpANS X3.215-199x, Programming
Languages - Forth, a project of Technical Committee X3J14, during
1993. I have answered the following questions completely and
accurately:
Name: ___________________________________________________________
Affiliation: ____________________________________________________
Telephone: __________________________ (not required)
Facsimile: __________________________ (not required)
Mailing address: ________________________________________________
(REQUIRED) ________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
Electronic Mail Address (please show a form that may be used
directly from the Internet. Please use an address that
is expected to remain valid for at least one year):
____________________________________________________________
E-Mail Address for mailgroup ansforth if different:
____________________________________________________________
Name and e-mail address for responsible party if the address
for mailgroup is an exploder:
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
The X3 Secretariat has requested $20.00 US per copy
contribution for administrative costs associated with public
review of this project.
Do you intend to mail $20.00 to the above X3 Secretariat
address for this purpose? __________. If yes, please
include in the envelope your name and that of the project
(X3.215-199x for dpANS-5).
Signature ___________________________________
(PEM signatures encouraged for all with capability)
A001-01G ansforth-request@minerva.com [Page 5]
X3J14/93-006 - Procedures for Pilot Electronic Public Review 31 Mar 93
B. X3 Official Message.
Please read this document in detail before attempting to make any
Public Review comments.
B.1 Definitions.
You have an "Official Copy" of the Draft if (1) it is
hardcopy published by Global Engineering Documents, Inc., or
(2) you obtained the Draft -directly- from the FTP server
identified in section 1 above, or (3) you obtained the draft
directly from the XCB archives on Compuserve(tm).
A Draft obtained by other means, including a draft which
came from an intermediate agent who claims to have obtained
the document from an X3-approved source, is not an Official
Copy.
The "Draft" refers to the hardcopy image produced by
printing the Postscript files. Only such an image is
considered to be the official document which has been
involved in the X3/ANSI approval process.
The "Pedigree" of your Draft is the route by which the Draft
came to you; that is, the list of places the Draft had been
before it came to you. (This information is generally
important only in the case that the draft is not an Official
Copy, in case some question comes up about whether your copy
has been damaged or altered, so that we can detect how or
why.)
You are a "Registered Purchaser" if you obtained a copy of
the draft in hardcopy from Global Engineering Documents,
Inc.
You are a "Registered Commenter" if you submitted a properly
formed Public Review comment in hardcopy per X3/SD-2
procedures (summarized below), or have registered per the
procedures in section 2 above.
You are a "Registered Participant" if you are either a
"Registered Purchaser" or a "Registered Commenter". You are
a "Registered electronic participant" only if you have
registered electronically according to section 2.
B.2 Ordering Hardcopy.
You may order "X3.215, 199x, Programming Language Forth" from
Global Engineering Documents, Inc.
15 Inverness Way East
Englewood, CO 80112-5704
1-800-854-7179 (within USA)
303-792-2181 (outside USA)
A001-01G ansforth-request@minerva.com [Page 6]
X3J14/93-006 - Procedures for Pilot Electronic Public Review 31 Mar 93
B.3 Status.
The Draft in this directory has been formally approved as a
draft proposed American National Standard (dpANS).
The Draft is now in a period of Public Review which began on
2 April 1993 and ends on 1 June 1993.
Depending on the number and nature of Public Review
comments, there is the possibility that there will be one or
more subsequent Public Review periods. (See "Notification"
below.)
B.4 Procedures for Making Public Review Comments.
Public review comments MAY be submitted via e-mail by
registered electronic particpants ONLY. Public review
comments may be submitted by anyone, however, in the
traditional HARDCOPY format. Here are the hardcopy
procedures:
You must submit your hardcopy comments IN DUPLICATE to the
following two addresses:
X3 Secretariat
Attn.: Lynn Barra
1250 Eye Street NW, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20005
and American National Standards Institute
Attn: BSR Center
11 West 42nd St., 13th Floor
New York, NY 10036
In your communication, PLEASE include the following information:
- Your name
- Your postal mail address (i.e., for hardcopy mail)
- Your telephone number
- An electronic mail address (optional)
- As complete as you know it, the Pedigree of your
Draft. (For a discussion of Pedigrees, see
"Definitions" above).
- Your comment(s).
For further information on procedures for making Public Review
comments, refer to the document X3/SD-2.
B.5 Notification.
In the event that there is a need for a subsequent Public
Review period, X3 will specifically notify Registered
Commenters (see "Definitions" above).
Individuals who are not Registered Commenters may choose to
rely on the same ad hoc communication processes through
which they heard about the present Public Review (currently
in effect), but there is
A001-01G ansforth-request@minerva.com [Page 7]
X3J14/93-006 - Procedures for Pilot Electronic Public Review 31 Mar 93
no claim by X3 that this mechanism will be reliable.
Note that no recipient of an online document is
automatically a Registered Purchaser because currently there
is no established mechanism for such online access to notify
X3 of an intent to be registered. Recipients of the online
document only become Registered Participants if they become
Registered Commenters by filing a Registration per section 2
above, by making Public Review comments (see "Procedures for
Making Public Review Comments" above), or if they
redundantly purchase hardcopy from Global Engineering
Documents, Inc.
B.6 Questions about Procedures for this Public Review or X3 Procedures
in General.
Mail Lynn Barra
X3 Secretariat, CBEMA
1250 Eye Street, NW, Suite 200
Washington, D.C. 20005
Phone +1-202-626-5747
FAX +1-202-638-4922
B.7 Questions about X3J14 or its activities.
Mail Elizabeth D. Rather
X3J14 Technical Committee Chair
FORTH, Inc.
111 N. Sepulveda Blvd.
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Phone +1-310-372-8493
FAX +1-310-318-7130
B.8 Technical questions about e-mail or file transfer procedures.
Mail Greg Bailey
X3J14 Technical Subcommittee Chair
ATHENA Programming, Inc.
24680 NW Dixie Mountain Road
Hillsboro, Oregon 97124 US
Internet gvb@minerva.com
Phone +1-503-621-3215
FAX +1-503-621-3954
or to the current X3J14 Ombudsmen (the preferred method) at
Internet ansforth-request@minerva.com
A001-01G ansforth-request@minerva.com [Page 8]
X3J14/93-006 - Procedures for Pilot Electronic Public Review 31 Mar 93
C. E-mail access to FTP servers.
If your Internet access is limited to mail, you may still
retrieve files from FTP servers. To begin with you will
need to find out how to send mail to Internet addresses, and
you will also need to know how to express your e-mail
address so that Internet entities can send mail back to you.
This information is best obtained from advisors who work
with/for whatever e-mail system you have. They can also
help you make use of the following information, which was
obtained from two Internet mail oriented file retrieval
servers and is reprinted as it was received.
======================= FTPMAIL INFORMATION =======================
From: "ftpmail service on inet-gw-2.pa.dec.com" <nobody@Pa.dec.com>
To: gvb@med3.minerva.com
Subject: your ftpmail request has been received
X-Complaints-To: ftpmail-admin@inet-gw-2.pa.dec.com
X-Service-Address: ftpmail@inet-gw-2.pa.dec.com
-- Help --
>>> $Id: help-text,v 1.6 1993/02/16 14:55:03 vixie Exp $
>>>
>>> commands are:
reply <MAILADDR> set reply addr, since headers are usually wrong
connect [HOST [USER [PASS [ACCT]]]]
defaults to gatekeeper.dec.com, anonymous
ascii files grabbed are printable ascii
binary files grabbed are compressed or tar or both
chdir PLACE "get" and "ls" commands are relative to PLACE
(only one CHDIR per ftpmail session,
and it executes before any LS/DIR/GETs)
compress compress binaries using Lempel-Ziv encoding
compact compress binaries using Huffman encoding
uuencode binary files will be mailed in uuencode format
btoa binary files will be mailed in btoa format
chunksize SIZE split files into SIZE-byte chunks (def: 64000)
ls (or dir) PLACE short (long) directory listing
index THING search for THING in ftp server's index
get FILE get a file and have it mailed to you
(max 10 GET's per ftpmail session)
quit terminate script, ignore rest of mail message
(use if you have a .signature or
are a VMSMAIL user)
>>> notes:
-> you should send complaints to the ftpmail-admin address.
our postmaster does not handle ftpmail problems and you
can save her the trouble of forwarding your complaints by
just mailing them to the right address. the
"ftpmail-request" address is gone; don't use it.
A001-01G ansforth-request@minerva.com [Page 9]
X3J14/93-006 - Procedures for Pilot Electronic Public Review 31 Mar 93
-> the "index" command depends on the "SITE EXEC INDEX"
feature of some ftp servers. Gatekeeper.dec.com
originated this feature, and ftp.uu.net duplicated it
(with a format change to the output, naturally).
Wuarchive.wustl.edu also has this feature, though their
index seems to be empty. The source for an ftpd that
supports this feature is on Gatekeeper.DEC.COM in
/pub/DEC/gwtools.
-> a password of "" or '' will be sent as a null string. if
you need this you will know it, if you don't, you won't.
-> the "Subject:" of your request will be contained in the
"Subject:" of all of ftpmail's responses to you regarding
that request. You can therefore use it to "tag"
different requests if you have more than one outstanding
at any given time.
-> you must give a "connect" command, default host is
gatekeeper.dec.com, default user is anonymous, default
password is your mail address with a hyphen prepended.
-> binary files will not be compressed unless 'compress' or
'compact' command is given; use this if at all possible,
it helps a lot. note that many files are already
compressed. if you use any of the binary-file qualifiers
(compress, compact, uuencode, btoa) without setting
'binary' first, your session will abort in error.
-> binary files will always be formatted into printable
ASCII with "btoa" or "uuencode" (default is "btoa"). if
you don't use the "binary" command, ftpmail will
cheerfully try to mail you the binary data, which will
absolutely, positively fail.
-> all retrieved files will be split into chunks and mailed.
the size of the chunk is 64000 characters unless you
change it with the "chunksize" command. CompuServe users
will need to set this to 49000. there is no way to set
it higher than 100000, so please don't ask.
-> if you ask for more than 10 files in a session, you will
receive an error message and your entire request will be
rejected.
-> VMS/DOS/Mac versions of uudecode, atob, compress and
compact are available, ask your LOCAL wizard about them
if you can't locate them (but try gatekeeper.dec.com in
/archive/pub/VMS if you're still using a VMS system.)
-> several mail unsplitters are hiding on gatekeeper.dec.com
in /pub/mail/ua/misc/unsplit. there is one in c, one in
perl, and one in VMS DCL.
-> there is no way to request only certain parts of a file
and we do not plan to add one in the near future, so
please don't ask.
-> there is no way to delete things from the queue or to
find out the status of things in the queue, and we do not
plan to add
A001-01G ansforth-request@minerva.com [Page 10]
X3J14/93-006 - Procedures for Pilot Electronic Public Review 31 Mar 93
either feature in the near future, so please don't ask.
>>> examples:
-> connect to gatekeeper.dec.com and get a root directory listing:
connect
ls
quit
-> connect to gatekeeper.dec.com and get the README.ftp file:
connect
get README.ftp
quit
-> connect to gatekeeper.dec.com and get the gnuemacs sources:
connect
binary
uuencode
chdir /pub/GNU
get emacs-18.58.tar.Z
quit
-> connect to ftp.uu.net as anonymous and get a root directory list:
connect ftp.uu.net
binary
chdir /index/master
get by-name.Z
quit
-- End of Help --
-- Ftpmail Submission Transcript --
<<< help
>>> Help is on the way.
<<< quit
>>> Done - rest of message will be ignored
-- End of Ftpmail Transcript --
-- Full Mail Header From Request --
From gvb@med3.minerva.com Sun Feb 28 22:17:42 1993
Received: by inet-gw-2.pa.dec.com; id AA26906; Sun, 28 Feb 93 22:17:42
-0800
Message-Id: <9303010617.AA26906@inet-gw-2.pa.dec.com>
From: gvb@med3.minerva.com
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 93 22:18 PST
To: ftpmail
Content-Type: text
Content-Length: 10
-- End of Request Mail Header --
A001-01G ansforth-request@minerva.com [Page 11]
X3J14/93-006 - Procedures for Pilot Electronic Public Review 31 Mar 93
===================== BITFTP INFORMATION ==============================
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1993 01:17:55 EST
From: Princeton BITNET FTP Server <BITFTP@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
To: gvb@MED3.MINERVA.COM
Subject: BITFTP HELP
Content-Type: text
Content-Length: 10534
Status: RO
BITFTP -- Princeton BITNET FTP Server
BITFTP provides a mail interface to the FTP command supplied by
the IBM TCP/IP for VM product ("FAL") running on the Princeton
University VM/CMS system, to allow BITNET/NetNorth/EARN users to
ftp files from sites on the Internet.
To use BITFTP, send mail containing your ftp commands to
BITFTP@PUCC (or to BITFTP@ESUBTASKNOTACTIVE Subtask not
active.ESUBTASKNOTACTIVE
Subtask not active).
The first command to BITFTP must be "FTP", "HELP", "VMS", or
"FTPLIST". Use "HELP" to request a current copy of this help
file. Use "VMS" to request a collection of tips provided by
BITFTP users on how to handle binary files from BITFTP on VMS
systems. Use "FTPLIST" to obtain a list of some of the hosts
that allow anonymous ftp. (Note that there is no guarantee that
BITFTP can access all the hosts in that list.)
The recommended syntax for FTP requests is:
FTP hostname NETDATA --or-- FTP hostname UUENCODE
USER username password
<other ftp subcommands>
QUIT
For "hostname", specify the name (e.g.,
"Bambleweeny57.Princeton.EDU") or IP address (e.g.,
"128.112.64.12") of the host from which you wish to request
files. Following the hostname on the FTP command, you may
specify "UUENCODE" or "NETDATA" to tell BITFTP the format in
which you wish to receive files. Please use NETDATA format if
you can, as it imposes a substantially smaller burden on both
BITFTP and the network. (Users inside IBM will be able to
receive NETDATA files only if they send their requests to BITFTP
via the VNET/BITNET gateway, rather than via the VNET/Internet
gateway.)
The "username" in your request should be the userid that owns the
files you wish to request. If the username in your ftp request
is "anonymous", no password is required; BITFTP will use your
userid and and its own nodeid for the password. If the username
is not "anonymous", then you must specify the password
appropriate for the username. Note that on many systems
passwords are case-sensitive; that is, the password may be
required to be in lower case or mixed case or upper case. (The
same is true of directory and file names.)
A001-01G ansforth-request@minerva.com [Page 12]
X3J14/93-006 - Procedures for Pilot Electronic Public Review 31 Mar 93
The following is an example of an ftp request:
FTP nis.nsf.net
USER anonymous
cd introducing.the.internet
get intro.to.ip
get network.gold
get where.to.start
get zen.ps
get zen.txt
QUIT
It connects to the host nis.nsf.net and requests five files from
the "introducing.the.internet" directory of that host's anonymous
login.
BITFTP implements a subset of the ftp subcommands provided in IBM
TCP/IP for VM and uses the same syntax. Therefore, you may find
it useful to obtain the IBM "TCP/IP for VM User's Guide", IBM
order number SC31-6081.
The currently supported subcommands are:
ACCT -- to send host-dependent account information.
format: ACCT account-information
ASCII -- to change the file transfer mode to ASCII.
format: ASCII
BINARY -- to change the file transfer mode to image.
format: BINARY <FIXED record-len> <VARIABLE>
CD -- to change the working directory.
format: CD directory
DIR -- to get a list of directory entries.
format: DIR
EBCDIC -- to change the file transfer mode to EBCDIC
format: EBCDIC
GET -- to get a file from the foreign host.
format: GET foreignfile <localfile>
If you specify "localfile", it must be in
the forms "filename.filetype" or "filename",
and the filename and filetype may each be no
more than 8 characters long and may not contain
periods. If the host you are FTPing to is a
VM/CMS system, then you should specify the
"foreignfile" as "filename.filetype"; that is,
the parts of the name should be separated by
periods, rather than blanks as they normally
are for CMS file names.
A001-01G ansforth-request@minerva.com [Page 13]
X3J14/93-006 - Procedures for Pilot Electronic Public Review 31 Mar 93
LS -- to list the files in a directory.
format: LS <name>
MODE -- to specify Stream or Block as the file transfer
mode.
format: MODE <S|B>
PWD -- to print the working directory.
format: PWD
QUIT -- to disconnect from the foreign host.
format: QUIT
SYSTEM -- to get the name of the foreign host's operating
system.
format: SYSTEM
TYPE -- to specify ASCII ("A"), image ("I"), Kanji Shift
JIS ("B"), EBCDIC ("E"), or EBCDIC IBM Kanji ("F")
as the file transfer mode.
format: TYPE <A|I|B|E|F>
BITFTP does not provide a PUT capability, and there is no
intention to make it do so in the future, nor does it provide an
MGET capability.
BITFTP accepts requests via RFC822-format mail, IBM NOTE-format
mail (with headers in English, French, German, or Danish),
PROFS-format messages, or files with no headers at all sent via
RSCS. It returns the requested files as NETDATA-format files or
as mail files containing uuencoded data. If you specify
"UUENCODE" or "NETDATA" on your "FTP" command, BITFTP will
attempt to use the format you request. If you do not specify the
format, BITFTP will attempt to select the appropriate format for
your node.
BITFTP attempts to determine your return address by parsing the
mail file it receives from you. It uses the address specified in
a "Reply-to:" line in the mail headers in preference to the
address specified in the "From:" line. If you specify a "PATH"
command in the body of the mail, that address will be used in
preference to either the "Reply-to:" or "From:" address. (The
format of a "PATH" command is simply "PATH userid@nodeid".)
BITFTP will not send you a file that contains more than 17825792
bytes of data. It will not send you more than 15000 lines of
directory listings as the result of one request file. Uuencoded
files are broken up into mail files that contain no more than 750
records (containing 62 bytes each). NETDATA-format files that
are larger than 900000 bytes are sent in 900000-byte pieces using
the BITSEND function. You should be able to receive such files
using the BITRCV function available from your nearest NETSERV.
(If you do not know how to use NETSERV, ask your local
BITNET/EARN/NetNorth Coordinator for assistance. Users inside
IBM can get help with BITRCV from the BITNET FORUM.) To recover
the original file when BITRCV is not available for your system,
use the command you normally use to receive
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NETDATA-format files and then catenate the files in the order
shown in the BITRCV control file.
Users in the UK should note that BITFTP attempts to send
NETDATA-format files through the gateway from EARN into Janet
using the NIFTP facility at Rutherford Lab. Receiving files via
NIFTP requires an overt action on your part. If you are at a
Janet node and don't know how to use NIFTP, you should ask for
assistance locally. Alternatively, you can ask BITFTP to send
your files uuencoded inside mail by specifying the "UUENCODE"
option.
If BITFTP sends you a file you cannot read, THE FIRST THING TO DO
is to make sure that you specified "ASCII" if the file should
contain textual material (or "EBCDIC" for text files from an IBM
system), or that you specified "BINARY" if the file should
contain binary data, executable programs, tar files, or the like.
User on IBM systems (VM/CMS or MVS/TSO) should specify "MODE B"
(for "Block") when requesting files from other IBM systems, in
order to preserve the record structure of the files.
VMS users should specify "BINARY F 512" and should use
RECEIVE/BINARY to receive the NETDATA-format binary files BITFTP
sends to them.
If BITFTP sends you a uuencoded file that you cannot uudecode,
the first thing to do is to translate all occurrences of 0x7E in
the file to 0x5E and then try uudecoding again. (Some gateways
change 5Es to 7Es when the files pass through them.)
There are many different flavors of UUENCODE/UUDECODE. The
version that BITFTP uses puts a "guard character" (the letter
"M") at the end of each encoded line (to prevent the removal of
trailing blanks in the encoded data). Most implementations of
uudecode know to ignore this character. If yours does not, then
you should remove the "M" at the end of each line before
attempting to uudecode the file.
When BITFTP is told to transfer a file in FIXED format, such as
"BINARY FIXED 512", it will create a file whose total byte count
is an integral multiple of the record length (512, in this case).
This means that the last record may be padded with binary zeros
to get it to the specified record length. In such a case, you
may need to use an editor to shorten the last record so that the
total byte count of the file is correct. (If the file is
uuencoded when you receive it, shorten it AFTER you have
uudecoded it.)
In addition to any files you request, you will also receive a
mail file containing a log of your ftp session. In that mail
file, entries prefixed by ">" are your original commands; those
prefixed by ">>" are your commands as interpreted by BITFTP and
passed to FAL; those prefixed by ">>>" are your commands as
interpreted by FAL and passed to the remote host; those prefixed
by "<<<" are messages from the remote host; and those prefixed by
">>>>" are completion messages from BITFTP.
If BITFTP is unable to connect to the host you specify, it will send
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you mail after the first attempt, but will keep trying at
intervals over two days. The only additional mail file you will
receive will be when the connection is made successfully or when
BITFTP gives up after two days.
The load on BITFTP is often very heavy, and network backlogs are
often so great that it may take several days for a file to get to
you once BITFTP sends it on its way, so please be patient and
don't send multiple requests for the same file. If your system
allows you to send interactive messages, you can inquire about
BITFTP's backlog by sending the query "How are you?", e.g., on a
VM system:
TELL BITFTP AT PUCC How are you?
Questions about BITFTP and suggestions for improvements should be
sent to Melinda Varian, MAINT@PUCC on BITNET or
MAINT@PUCC.Princeton.EDU on the Internet.
The author gratefully acknowledges the use of the SENDJANI EXEC
written by Alan Flavell and an RFC822 parsing routine written by
Eric Thomas. NOTE: If you have any complaints or suggestions
about the way any of these routines work in BITFTP, please send
them to MAINT@PUCC (Melinda Varian), not to those authors.
======================= END OF DOCUMENT ============================
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