Newsgroups: comp.archives.admin
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!ox.com!msen.com!emv
From: emv@msen.com (Ed Vielmetti)
Subject: archive normal form
In-Reply-To: emv@msen.com's message of Tue, 25 Jun 1991 17:54:54 GMT
Message-ID: <EMV.91Jun25175321@bronte.aa.ox.com>
Sender: usenet@ox.com (Usenet News Administrator)
Organization: MSEN, Inc. Ann Arbor MI
References: <1991Jun25.063045.22031@mel.dit.csiro.au>
	<EMV.91Jun25135450@bronte.aa.ox.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1991 21:53:25 GMT
Lines: 71


Let me explain and justify this format for recording archive
information, in the hope that it'll get wide use.  I'll be converting
the "MSEN Archive Service file verification" section of comp.archives
postings to this format so I want to get it right.

I believe I've sketched out something which would let you verify every
file that's available for anonymous FTP or semi-public FTP that's out
there; 

Here's a sample example.

19910520220500 f export.lcs.mit.edu /contrib ups-2.31.tar.Z 963435 ftp,30
19910520223700 f export.lcs.mit.edu /contrib ups-2.31.README 9758 ftp,30
19910528125400 f ftp.uu.net /tmp ups-song.ms 1237 ftp,21
19910529094400 f ftp.uu.net /tmp ups-song.au 1456032 ftp,21
19910530012300 d msen.com /debug/ups emv,case
19910624112800 w prep.ai.mit.edu /pub/gnu gawk* bug-gnu-utils
19910411185329 f nis.nsf.net,anonymous,guest . $read.me 1024 postmaster

$date f $site $dir $file $size $owner
$date w $site $dir $wildcard $owner
$date d $site $dir $owner

here's what the fields are.

19910520220500	$date: Date in ISO 3307 format (YYYYMMDDhhmmss[.xxxxxx]) 
		Sorts easily, easy to parse, microsecond resolution,
		will be used in NNTP2.
(d,f,w)		$type: directory, file, or wildcard specification.
		Directories have ($site, $dir, @owner).
		Wildcards   have ($site, $dir, $wildcard, @owner).
		Files       have ($site, $dir, $file, $size, @owner).
		Any other type can be added as long as suitable
		definitions for the following fields can be provided.
export.lcs.mit.edu	$site: System name.
		The default assumption is login with user "anonymous", any
		password acceptable; the entry for nis.nsf.net shows
		a situation where there's something different from the default
		that's needed; in that case it's interpreted as
		  ($site, $user, $pass)
	 	or even
		  ($site, $user, $pass, $acct)
XXX should ascii,binary be in here somewhere too?
XXX should some notion of explicit file types be here?

There are three sorts of things to describe, files, directories, and
wildcard specifications.  Files are operated on with the DIR, GET, and
MGET commands.  Directories are operated on with the CD and DIR
commands.  Wildcards are operated on with the DIR and MGET commands.

gawk*		$wildcard: wildcard file specification.  Specified according
		to local host conventions.  The $date variable for this
		should be set to the latest change date for the files
		that match the wildcard file specification.
/contrib	$dir: Directory.  cd to this directory.  In the special
		case where no cd command needs to be (or should not
		be) issued, treat "." as a no op.
ups-song.au	$file: File name.  
1456032		$size: File size, in bytes, when properly transferred to
		a different machine.  Systems which report sizes in blocks
		need to translate.
emv,case	$owner: comma-separated list of owners.  First one should
		also be a mail address (e.g. emv@archive.msen.com).  The
		rest can be group names or any other key words, tags,
		or identifiers which you might choose to use, or names
		of mail addresses.
XXX this is pretty wide open....

-- 
Edward Vielmetti, MSEN Inc. 	moderator, comp.archives 	emv@msen.com
