[sword-devel] InstallMgr

[Daniel Owens]

Troy A. Griffitts wrote:
> Dear DM and other,
>
>> Maybe someone can help a bit. The problem we ran into was that there 
>> was no reliable way to download a folder via http and there was no 
>> way to reliably know the content of the folder.
>
> Yes, agreed, this is why implementing this on the C++ side is not yet 
> complete.  It is not a trivial task to attempt to parse many different 
> web server folder listing output formats and boil those contents down 
> to a file/directory list, as DM has noted.
>
> On the FTP side we use a crazy 3rd party routine called ftpparse 
> (which popped up recently regarding license header info).
>
> Someone needs to write/find an httpparse counterpart which does the 
> same.  Then we can officially support HTTP as well.
>
> BUT PLEASE DON'T MISS THE POINT OF MY CAPS FROM THE LAST MESSAGE :)
>
> mods.d.tar.gz is for OPTIMIZATION / CACHING.
> a future zips/<modulename>.zip would be OPTIMIZATION / CACHING.
>
> These are extra-- above and beyond the requirements for a functioning 
> repository.
>
> A repository should not be required-- and is currently NOT required-- 
> to generate these.

I think I caught your drift with the caps in your previous message, but 
it's a bit discouraging and doesn't yet answer the problem I raised 
awhile back.

To recap, because of security concerns with having anonymous FTP access, 
one group I work with effectively denied us the ability to set up a 
repository. If HTTP is not required of front-ends, then you MUST have an 
FTP repository to get consistent coverage among the front-ends. I'm not 
hearing a clear argument for why HTTP shouldn't become the standard 
except that "Our scripts for generating zipped modules doesn't work 
reliably" and "it's hard to create a list of modules from different 
formats." Are both of these insurmountable?

I'm trying to understand why FTP is the preferred method when HTTP is a 
lower common denominator between providers. Could you explain that to me?

My goal isn't to push an agenda but find a way to set up a repository 
that will work with all front-ends but does not use anonymous FTP.

Mildly discouraged,
Daniel