Mode Z and Binary files

Jesper · 08-04-2005, 12:03 PM

I would like to see that an "Force Mode Z on ASCII Only", it is nuts to use Mode Z on binary files.... compressing an mpg or mp3 adds +X% bytes to a transfer...

Linkster · 08-04-2005, 12:12 PM

Agreed. Sounds like a good feature to squeak into the next release

bigstar · 08-04-2005, 01:52 PM

I'm not sure if having it based on ASCII/BINARY files is such a great idea, there are lots of binary files that will compress nicely. I actually did some tests on some mp3s and mpegs, as well as some avi's and all of them compressed alittle bit. One clear except would be archived files, zip, rar, etc.

Perhaps it should be based on file type which user could define.

I doubt this will make it into the next release. However it could probably be added into the release after that.

Jesper · 08-04-2005, 02:32 PM

Heh, a word slipped in the original post, it was supposed to say 'an option "force..."'

based on extensions is a pretty good idea too, but I'd still like to be able to turn it off completely for binary files.
Next build or the following one, doesnt matter to me, Im not in a hurry

darkone · 08-04-2005, 03:43 PM

If type of listed files could be switched from 'do not compress' to 'compress', it would be easy to list either files you want to compress or files you do not want to compress using regexps or similar. Also, I think it could be nice to be able to specify maximum/minimum size of file that compression is used on (also there's not much sense to compress file smaller than one MTU

)
[*] Compress

*.txt
*.me
*.
*.nfo
*.1st
*.doc
*.wri
*.htm
*.html
*.xml
*.php
*.sh
Files smaller than 100Kb

To compress common text files.

Or:
[*] Do not compress

*.[r0-9][0-9][0-9]
*.rar
*.zip
*.tgz
*.gz
*.bz2
Files larger than 100Kb

bigstar · 08-04-2005, 04:00 PM

Yeah we'll probably design it something like that.

However we'll also allow the compression ratio to be set on uploaded files. If the ftp server supports it we can also set the compression ratio on download too.

Depending on the ftp server most text files in general are better suited for MODE Z because MODE Z is compressed and streamed. Alot of ftp servers that send files in ascii mode only send a single line at a time, rather than sending the file data using the full buffer size.

MxxCon · 08-04-2005, 04:06 PM

maybe this should be server controled?
even if client will request mode z, server will use fastest or no compression.
and when you upload, especially on asymetric connections, you want to get max speed possible

bigstar · 08-04-2005, 04:29 PM

Some ftp servers do have settings to control the compression ratio on downloading based on file mask.

Usually MODE Z is faster on files compared to uncompessed, on some lans there are some exceptions. Your CPU and the server CPU speeds are both factors too.