Re: ftp Question

[swallace@balboa.eng.uci.edu (Steven Wallace)]

In article <2b29pt$adh@gap.cco.caltech.edu>,
Todd P. Whitesel <toddpw@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>gachot@bonnet.enet.dec.com () writes:
>
>>	Coudl someone tell me if it's possible to 
>>	'mget' multiple directories (Files which are in each
>>	directory) automatically. without going through
>>	each directories and do 'mget *'.
>
>Not in general. The interface used by Berkely's FTP client (which almost
>every unix system uses) did not have provisions for walking directory trees
>recursively. The expectation was that you'd have accounts on both systems
>and tar up everything and FTP the tar archive. This doesn't account for
>anonymous FTP, of course, but nobody expected that to be as popular as it
>was...
>
>If there is a way to do it with the 'standard' FTP program, I'd love to hear
>about it. I've often wanted such a capability myself, but I've never found it
>in the help or the man pages.
>
Some ftpd's allow one to get a whole directory tarred and compressed.
For example, if there is a directory named bigdir, if you type the
command "get bigdir.tar.Z" the site will tar up the directory and
compress it and and send you that file.  One such site that can
do that is ics.uci.edu, but most places don't have that fancy feature.