Carl Ponder wrote:
Hey -- how about making the "-a" the default, then add a command-line
switch that supresses "-a" for servers it won't work with?
Hrvoje Niksic responded:
That would mean using a non-standard extension by default, and putting
the burden to the user to disable it when it misfires. A better
approach would be for Wget to be smart enough to try `-a' and, if that
fails, fall back to generic LIST.
How about this, then.... document "wget" as follows:
By default, for wildcard and recursive operations, "wget" *ignores*
invisible files (like ".profile", ".rhosts", etc.) that begin with
'.'.
Then add a flag
--invisibleok Causes wildcard and recursive operations to
process (otherwise invisible) files that
begin with ".". This flag may not work with
all FTP servers.
When the flag is set, use "-a" in the FTP operations. Then the burden is
on the user to figure out whether it works or not, which is okay for my
purposes. As it is, nothing in the documentation even mentions that "wget"
doesn't work for "." files. At least this will make the situation clearer.
Also, if the implementation changes to where "." files can be transferred
under all conditions, i.e. not depending on "ftp -a" to implement the
feature, the flag would still make sense since *not* getting the invisible
files by default would keep it consistent with the current implementation.
Thanks,
Carl Ponder
