[sword-devel] HTTP install manager code

[Nic Carter]

Hi all,

Just wanted to report here that I've discovered a flaw in the code I submitted a while ago for having an HTTP repository.  The problem is in the code to parse a directory, and the issue is that different web servers dish up their ftp folders in different ways.  I coded that based on the CrossWire repos, so that the code works great for both the CrossWire and the CrossWire Beta (and the CrossWire experimental!) repos, but I have just started working on adding custom repos to PocketSword and when you add the HTTP version of the Xiphos repo, there is a crash.

I'm not sure if anyone else is actually using that code atm, but if you are, please be aware of that!  I'm hoping to patch it so that it fails nicely, and then I may either try to fix it or change the code so it tries to download the zip file instead (which is what Bible Desktop does, I believe?).  :)

FYI, the issue is how the html is dished out.  On the Xiphos server, it pushes out the formatting in <pre> tags, whereas the CrossWire server does it using proper html formatting.  Shouldn't be too hard to fix, but I've now realised that we can't really guarantee how the directory contents will be displayed by the server, so perhaps it's not a battle we should be striving to win?  In some (brief) testing, I believe that accessing the CrossWire repos via HTTP is quicker than via FTP, so I am going to prefer HTTP over FTP in cases where it works.  :)


Thanks, ybic
	nic...  :)

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Nic Carter
PocketSword Developer - an iPhone Bible Study app
www: http://crosswire.org/pocketsword
iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/app/Pocketsword/id341046078
Twitter: http://twitter.com/pocketsword