6.1)
INTERFACING WITH College Street
In
all the sections below, a distinction is made
between transferring ASCII files and binary
files. This is important -- you must
transfer files in the appropriate mode.
Perl
scripts and HTML files are ASCII files, along
with many others. If you use a plain text editor
to work with a file, it's an ASCII file. It's
not terribly important to transfer HTML files in
ASCII mode, but it is important for Perl
scripts.
GIFs
and JPEGs, as well as audio and video files, are
binary files. They must be uploaded in
binary mode, or will be corrupted. Files that
look like garbage in a plain text editor and
require a more advanced program to edit are not
ASCII files, and must be transferred in binary
mode.
6.1.1)
FTP - Graphical Interface (wu_ftp, fetch, etc.)
Users
with graphical interfaces can run a program such
as WS_ftp, cuteFTP, or fetch to interface with
College Street. Just log into your domain name with
the username and password we provide you. If you
do not have your own domain name, we will
provide you with the name of our host where your
username resides. (Or, follow the instructions
in 6.1.3 and note the machine name in the login
prompt.)
See
1.2.1.3)
MS Windows Access in Chapter One for details.
6.1.2)
FTP - Shell Interface
For
Unix users, at the shell prompt, type ftp your-domain.com.
Then enter your username and password when
prompted.
ASCII
files (text)
Type
ascii to make sure you are in ascii mode.
Type
put filename to put a file.
Type
get filename to get a file.
Binary
files (graphics)
Type
binary to make sure you are in binary mode.
Type
put filename to put a file.
Type
get filename to get a file.
6.1.3)
Telnet - Graphical Interface
Simply
run the program on your machine that contains
telnet in its name. Then log onto your-domain.com
(or .net or .org) with your userid and password.
Once
logged on, you may use the following commands
(assuming your telnet program knows or can be
taught about ZMODEM, which often isn't the
case):
ASCII
files (text)
Type
rz to put a file.
Type
sz -a filename to get a file.
Binary
files (graphics)
Type
rz filename to put a file.
Type
sz -b filename to get a file.
6.1.4)
Telnet - Shell Interface
At
the shell prompt, type telnet -8 your-domain.com.
Then enter your userid and password when
prompted.
Once
logged on, you may use the following commands:
ASCII
files (text)
Type
rz filename to put a file.
Type
sz -a filename to get a file.
Binary
files (graphics)
Type
rz filename to put a file.
Type
sz -b filename to get a file.
6.2)
ASCII AND BINARY MODES
Go
up and read 6.1. It's covered there.
So
why this section? If this seems obvious, sorry,
but probably the single biggest type of problem
we have to correct or tell users to do over is
problems caused by having the wrong mode active.
We needed this in big letters so you'd find it.
Macintosh
users: in Fetch, the binary mode referred to
throughout the manual is 'raw'. The other option
uploads too much data, corrupting the file.
In
case you're wondering what the fuss is about --
aren't text files standardized? -- here's the
explanation. While ASCII is a standard for
encoding text, it does not specify how to end
lines. There are two obvious candidates in the
ASCII character set: CR and LF. *nix machines,
such as the CollegeStreetServices WWW machines, use LF to
terminate lines. Macintoshes use CR. DOS,
Windows, and NT machines use CR LF (both, in
that order). When transferring files between
machines of different types, you need to account
for this, hence ASCII mode. To avoid damaging
binary files (where the bytes don't have the
ASCII semantics) there is binary mode.
