Re: LYNX-DEV BUG? Problem with suggested name for downloaded

[WWW server manager]

Foteos Macrides wrote:
> 
> WWW server manager <address@hidden> wrote:
> >Using lynx 2.7.1 + fotemods.zip dated 21 Sep 1997, on Sun Solaris 2.5.1
> >(SPARC) with Sun's C compiler ...
> >
> >Fetching compressed tar files (xxx.tar.Z) from web servers (i.e. HTTP not 
> >FTP) by selecting the relevant links explicitly using the d(ownload) command
> >in lynx seems to behave oddly, and certainly differently from older versions
> >of lynx (though I don't know when it changed).
> >
> >Where there is a well-defined filename available from the URL, I would 
> >expect lynx to offer that as the default for saving downloaded files (and
> >that's what happened with the older versions I've used), but with the
> >version described above it sometimes omits the compression suffix (for .Z, I
> >presume .gz would be treated similarly), although the file *is* saved in
> >in its original form. With e.g. lynx 2.4.1, the name from the URL is used
> >unaltered.
> > ...
> 
>       The HTCheckFnameForCompression() function which I added in
> GridText.c based on discussions about Content-Disposition header
> handling in the IETF's HTTP-WG had a bug such that it wasn't taking
> a Content-Type of application/octet-stream into account.  That's
> fixed in the fotemods.zip I just updated at slcc.  As Klaus has
> reported and is discussing, he added that function to the devel
> code.  However, he changed it's logic in ways I don't intent to
> reproduce in the fotemods (i.e., the Lynx code that I actually
> use seriously), so keep those discussions distinct from ones about
> the fotemods.  Here's how it's intended to work in the fotemods.
> If it doesn't, continue reporting bugs via the lynx-dev list.

Thank you for the fix and the explanation.

One followup question ... I'm now confused - I'd got the impression that the
updates collected together in successive fotemods.zip files represented the
ongoing lynx development, combining your updates and updates contributed by
other people. The mention of distinct (and divergent) "devel" code leaves me
wondering which (if either) is in some sense the definitive version, which
will eventually become the next "official" release, subject to any changes
in the meantime.

This wouldn't normally matter (wait for the next release, and it contains
whatever it contains...), but having been forced into picking up an 
intermediate version in order to get the security fixes, it raises the 
question of continuity. With a large user population, it would be awkward if
we were to install a version which included various new features which would
vanish or behave differently in version 2.7.2 or whatever it may be called.

(Fair enough if they turn out to be a bad idea and have to be changed or
dropped for that reason, but it would be unfortunate to install "variant A",
only to discover that "variant B" was the one which became 2.7.2, with
inherently different and incompatible features.)

                                John Line
-- 
University of Cambridge WWW manager account (usually John Line)
Send general WWW-related enquiries to address@hidden
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