MLSD/List issues

While not commonly used, you can specify glob patterns to most FTP servers via LIST, i.e. LIST -al *foo*. If you attempt to do this in FlashFXP and you have use MLSD checked it will convert that request into MLSD without any arguments and thus looses the glob pattern. You also can't manually enter any of the other list arguments ioFTPD accepts such as -R for recursive listings, etc because they all get lost. Remember, this is a manually typed list command. It probably shouldn't be automatically converted.....

On the other hand, if you attempt to type MLSD manually it fails because FlashFXP didn't detect it was a list command and open up a data connection like it does for LIST. It should definitely do that.

The MLSD standard says it accepts no commands, however on the servers I've been testing they usually do accept glob patterns. Therefore, a manually typed MLSD command should probably be passed in it's entirety and let the server ignore/reject unsupported formats.

Finally, you can specify a custom set of list arguments to pass to LIST commands but only as a general option and thus you can't customize it for particular sites. This features should probably be brought onto the site config menu where STAT, MLSD, etc are listed which probably needs to be turned into a radio box to pick one, and then a textfield for the custom args to pass...

There is a 'List Method' section in Preferences > Connection that allows you to customize the arguments sent with a list request, however its global not per site.

I have mentioned/discussed the way flashfxp overrides manual list commands via raw command, it was explained that in this case entering list/stat/etc is mearly used as a trigger to call the configured list method rather. Personally, id prefer to ability to have manually entered list commands retain the method rather than switch to the configured method. IIRC it was explained that the reason for this is that flashfxp is setup so that it needs to know which method is being returned for correct parsing/display, not sure how feasable it is to do this automatically, ie examine a few lines of the incoming list, determine which type it is from that, then parse/display according.. but if possible it would be preferable imo.

The fact that MLSD can not be entered into the raw command and trigger/work correctly is something i had not noticed, but that should indeed be possible... im guessing this was simply overlooked at the time.

I also think that, as long as it complies with the methods specification (ie its permitted to send arguments etc), it should retain the arguments entered.

I obviously agree on keeping the arguments on manually entered commands, and not switching to whatever the preferred list method is. But I should point point out that there is no reason to determine what type of answer you received because you already know based on what command was entered

Forget what the specification allows with regards to arguments to MLSD. Servers support MLSD globbing and have since the earliest days based on some google hits I found when I was implementing the command so might as well let users use them if entering the command manually. I believe this already works with FlashFXP though. Type MLSD *foo* and it sends that, but because it doesn't create the data channel before issuing the command nothing currently happens as the server rejects the request...

point out that there is no reason to determine what type of answer you received because you already know based on what command was entered

This may or may not be true, iirc bigstar mentioned awhile ago that flashfxp is event based. Working on this assumption i would guess that it doesnt 'save/remember' the command that was sent, wether it be raw or automated, past the point where the command is sent. So is probably that when flashfxp recieved list data it checks the site settings in memory for which type to expect to correctly display the results. I could be wrong of corse...

As DayCuts pointed out this is a situation where by the time the command is executed we don't know if it was a raw command or a regular list.

Naturally you don't want -al or whatever the custom list arguments may be to be used for MLSD since they would cause it to fail.

I'll put this on my list of things I need to look into.