I am sad to find many FTP sites which you can cheaply obtain, use I believe it is "Pure FTP", and the darn utility puts TODAY'S date on all uploads!
As the inventor of Xmodem - which did the same thing back in '78, I can tell you that one of the first improvements that Chuck Forsberg did in making what I had him call "Ymodem" then eventually he did Zmodem, was to copy the file DATE to the receiving end. This was in the 80's for sure.
SO it is quite unbelievable that in today's world someone would write such a "dumb" utility as to LOSE the FILE DATE so you can't tell if it is a new or old etc.
THUS, using an internet based FTP site for backups, is quite "frustrating", in that files backed up to it will always be NEWER than the ones you currently have (because they get the "NOW" timestamp).
I can't think of anything BC could do about this, nor is it BC's problem.
If I were programming BC and needed this badly enough, I would probably grab the filenames, dates, times, and sizes, (like save-a-session does) and transfer it as the last file in a file transfer - then when connecting have an option to "load the overriding file dates" from that file so all the remote files don't appear "newer".
Some "Hacks" I have done:
1. I created a "ds" program that date stamps the file IN THE NAME i.e. today it would be 070712 or even 070712@1824-filename. This allows me to use the FILENAMES to see which is newer - but then most files are otherwise unusable because their names have changed.
2. I do a - gasp - COMPARE between local and remote, THEN filter for =/= so that the = files (which had diff dates) now disappear because they've been flagged equal by a binary compare. This is painful because of all the transferring required.
3. You can put files in a zip and send up the zip, then download the zip as it will preserve the individual file dates. This is highly unacceptable as you can't see the zip contents online.
4. I tried to get shell access so I could have scripts that make a file of file dates, then changes them on the FTP site, but most don't allow shell access.
_________
If anyone has any good suggestions, I would sure appreciate a reply to this post!
As the inventor of Xmodem - which did the same thing back in '78, I can tell you that one of the first improvements that Chuck Forsberg did in making what I had him call "Ymodem" then eventually he did Zmodem, was to copy the file DATE to the receiving end. This was in the 80's for sure.
SO it is quite unbelievable that in today's world someone would write such a "dumb" utility as to LOSE the FILE DATE so you can't tell if it is a new or old etc.
THUS, using an internet based FTP site for backups, is quite "frustrating", in that files backed up to it will always be NEWER than the ones you currently have (because they get the "NOW" timestamp).
I can't think of anything BC could do about this, nor is it BC's problem.
If I were programming BC and needed this badly enough, I would probably grab the filenames, dates, times, and sizes, (like save-a-session does) and transfer it as the last file in a file transfer - then when connecting have an option to "load the overriding file dates" from that file so all the remote files don't appear "newer".
Some "Hacks" I have done:
1. I created a "ds" program that date stamps the file IN THE NAME i.e. today it would be 070712 or even 070712@1824-filename. This allows me to use the FILENAMES to see which is newer - but then most files are otherwise unusable because their names have changed.
2. I do a - gasp - COMPARE between local and remote, THEN filter for =/= so that the = files (which had diff dates) now disappear because they've been flagged equal by a binary compare. This is painful because of all the transferring required.
3. You can put files in a zip and send up the zip, then download the zip as it will preserve the individual file dates. This is highly unacceptable as you can't see the zip contents online.
4. I tried to get shell access so I could have scripts that make a file of file dates, then changes them on the FTP site, but most don't allow shell access.
_________
If anyone has any good suggestions, I would sure appreciate a reply to this post!
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