Re: [OT] Date info in listings from ftp.kernel.org

[Nick.Holloway@pyrites.org.uk (Nick Holloway)]

jamagallon@able.es (J.A. Magallon) writes:
> Is this a bug in ftp servers ?
> -rw-rw-r--   1 korg  korg  867164 Dec 31 05:46 patch-2.6.1-rc1.gz
> -rw-rw-r--   1 korg  korg     248 Dec 31 05:46 patch-2.6.1-rc1.gz.sign
> -rw-rw-r--   1 korg  korg     248 Dec 31 05:46 patch-2.6.1-rc1.sign
> -rw-rw-r--   1 korg  korg  749822 Jan  6 06:51 patch-2.6.1-rc2.bz2
> -rw-rw-r--   1 korg  korg     248 Jan  6 06:51 patch-2.6.1-rc2.bz2.sign
> -rw-rw-r--   1 korg  korg  896088 Jan  6 06:51 patch-2.6.1-rc2.gz
> 
> Clients relay on year being present to set it, else it is set to 2004.
> So they suppose rc1 was released on Dec 31 2004.

Unix FTP servers present the time information as would be generated by
"ls".  The following is taken from "info ls":

    For files with a time more than six months old or in the future,
    the timestamp contains the year instead of the time of day.

The Microsoft FTP server acts as you suggest, in that it displays the
time if the year is the same.

As far as clients having problems, the good old "mirror" is able to deal
with this fine.  I suspect others are also able to deal with this.

I've even been as gross as to start up Internet Explorer, and enable
"Folder Mode for FTP sites", and that gets the year correct.

> Some way to get a listing with full year info ?

Not for a while directory, but you can for a particular file:

    ftp> modtime README-2.6
    README-2.6      12/18/2003 15:48:24 GMT

-- 
 `O O'  | Nick.Holloway@pyrites.org.uk
// ^ \\ | http://www.pyrites.org.uk/