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Re: LYNX-DEV FTP URL with ;type=I


From: Klaus Weide
Subject: Re: LYNX-DEV FTP URL with ;type=I
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 18:15:38 -0500 (CDT)

On Sun, 13 Apr 1997, Howard Kaikow wrote:

> A few daze ago, I tried using the FTP URL with ;type=I for the first time.
> As  my ISP had only Lynx 2.5, I ran into problems. This morning my ISP
> installed Lynx 2.7.1 (on a unix system) and I tried again. You can see my
> test below.
> 
> Both instances of ;type=I result in plain/text, instead of binary being used.
> In addition, the last case causes the ;type=I to be included in the
> filename when I Download.

That may be a flaw, but you can easily change the suggested filename by
deleting that part.

> For various reasons, I cannot include these files in my www page, where I
> could use .htaccess to get around the problem.
> 
> Somebody had informed me that the problems I had seen with version 2.5 were
> fixed in version 2.6 (according to changelog). I do not have a copy of
> changelog, 

You can read all of the CHANGES* files without downloading the full
sources, for example <URL:ftp://www.slcc.edu/pub/lynx/fote/lynx2-7-1/>.

> but I guess there are still problems, or am I incorrectly using
> the ;type=I option?

You are incorrect in assuming that the FTP type parameter has something to
do with the media type (MIME type) that Lynx will assume for an FTP file.
The type parameter is just acting on a lower level (the FTP protocol) -
it lets Lynx send a 'TYPE I' command to the FTP server, equivalent to a
'bin' or 'image' command (or whatever the syntax is) in command-line FTP.
Between Unix machines, it usually doesn't make any difference whether this 
is used.

Anyway, that does have no influence on what media tye Lynx assigns to
what it receives from the server.  That is determined (for "type-less"
protocols, i.e. not HTTP) by looking at the filename.  The mappings
from filename suffixes to media types can be configured in lynx.cfg
and in EXTENSION_MAP files (typically named mime.types and .mime.types).
There are also hardwired defaults for some suffixes in Lynx, but ".doc"
is not one of them.  If Lynx cannot find a mapping, it assumes
"text/plain" and tries to display the file.

So, (1) the ";type=I" may not be necessary, (2) You should map ".doc"
to "application/msword" (if that's what it is) or similar, and/or
ask you ISP to do so in the global mapping file; and also instruct
others who may want to retrieve the files to do the equivalent, or
just use the 'Download' function of their browser ('D' key in Lynx).

I just tried to access your URL with ";type=I" through a squid proxy,
and its ftpget didn't understand the parameter syntax at all.
So if you want to offer links to those documents to others, it is probably
safer to leave the type parameter out.

> <DD><A
> href="ftp://ftp.mv.com/pub/users/standards/public/annex01a.doc";type=I>DOC</A>

That is not valid HTML syntax.  Lynx just ignores the ;type=I as junk.

  Klaus

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