bug#48494: 28.0.50; [PATCH] AngeFTP fails on macOS 10.14 with GNU inetutils FTP

[Michael Albinus]

Alex Bochannek <alex@bochannek.com> writes:

>>> > How about making the default value depend on the value of system-type?
>>>
>>> You mean something like this?
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>>> The more I think about it, the more I am leaning against changing the
>>> default. I don't fully understand what inetutils ftp is doing and why -e
>>> is needed. Maybe submitting a bug against inetutils is the right
>>> approach here?
>>
>> Could be.
>
> I am sending in a report to bug-inetutils@gnu.org and see if they can
> offer some insight.
>
>>> Are there any automated cross-platform tests to see on which platform
>>> removing -v might break AngeFTP?
>>
>> I don't know.  maybe Michael (CC'ed) does.
>
> I take back my comment about Windows and -v. On the command line
> (cmd.exe), it absolutely does behave as the documentation indicated, but
> I just tried out AngeFTP under Windows 7 (Version 6.1.7601) and it only
> works with -v. Maybe Michael can explain what is going on there?

Well, I'm not an expert in ftp, and especially, I'm not an expert in ftp
client command line arguments. While I agree that adding the "-e" option
to the ftp call in ange-ftp.el sounds reasonable, I have no idea what
would be broken with some clients.

A check for system-type is not sufficient, for every system there are
different ftp clients, which could behave different. If we want to add a
check for command argument availability, we would need to fire a test
call, and to analyze, whether given command arguments are supported.

We should take into consideration, that the default value for
ange-ftp-ftp-program-args hasn't been changed for at least 21 years. We
should also take into consideration, that ftp is being phased out in
browsers like Chrome and Firefox; its importance is decreasing. So I
propose to not change anything, and let users customize
ange-ftp-ftp-program-args to their needs.

Best regards, Michael.