FSP Client 0.91.0 review
DownloadFSP Client is single executable client for the FSP protocol
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FSP Client is single executable client for the FSP protocol. Client uses an FTP-like user interface. People usually find this program easier to use that multiple client programs in FSP protocol suite. If you are at least somewhat familiar with command line FTP and want to try FSP, this program is a good choice for you.
There is a help command; not a very good one, but it does tell you the commands. Type `help' to get a list of all commands; to get a brief description of a command, type `help name' (`name' being the command); to get brief help on all commands type `help all' (warning: there are 46 commands).
See the manual page fsp(1) for a somewhat longer description...
Note for versions since 0.0-g: the command `cat', `get', `du', and `tar' can all take a `-r' flag -- this causes the commands to process subdirectories as well as files. e.g., `du' will give the disk usage of the current directory; `du -r' will give the disk usage of the current directory and _all_ subdirectories (resursively). The `timeout' command causes communications to return an error code if the timeout occurs; this means that:
timeout 30
pro
iferror exit
is a good way of determining whether a remote site is alive or not when writing scripts. The `ver' should only return an error if the timeout occurs -- however, pre-2.6.3 servers return version strings as an error which messes up that usage...
Macro's are, for want of a better word, stupid. Until parameter variables are allowed, they can not do very much. Common ones (and user set up options) should be defined in the file ~/.fsprc (i.e., .fsprc in your home directory). This filename can be changed by setting the environment variable FSPRC. An example .fsprc is supplied in the file `fsprc' in this directory.
It is also now possible to have commands like:
ls -l | less
Anything after the first `|' symbol is fed the output of the builtin command...
rehash may need a little explanation -- when you do an ls, the directory information is fetched to the local end and stays there (thanks to the original authors stuff); if you want to check if anything has been updated since you did an ls of a directory, then you must rehash first. The client is now a bit more intelligent than it used to be (i.e., pre `d' release); it will automatically mark directories as out-of-date if it knows that it has modified them (e.g., by put, or mkdir or whatever). It's the wrong command name, but it brings back fond memories of csh... It may sound like a disadvantage -- in fact it is an enormous benefit having it work this way... *much* faster.
All the commands which have a f equivalent in the original distribution behave as before; well, pretty much.
Oh, one last thing -- command lines can't have continuations... yet.
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If you use it and like it, mail me. I need the encouragement If you use it and don't like it, mail me. I need bringing back down to earth...
Basically, even though it is pre-alpha, I would still like to know whether people like it or not... just don't complain too loud when it doesn't work right :-)
What's New in This Release:
fsprc: wrack removed, decss added
fixed statistics printing in stat command
client/util.c add static prototype declaration
avoid hammering of down sites
fsprc: another FSP site added
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