RE: Programming alternatives to the AS/400 FTP command. -- MIDRANGE-L

We have an FTP client product that lets you issue each FTP command
separately in a session and use MONMSG or other logic to trap for errors
etc. You can even do things like CHKRMTF (check remote file - works like
CHKOBJ locally) to see if a file exists before up/down loading. Lots of
other stuff too.   


TrailBlazer Systems, Inc.
http://www.as400ftp.com
AS/400 Communications & E-Commerce Solutions

Chaos, panic and disorder...my work here is done.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan Moulsdale [SMTP:alan.moulsdale@virgin.net]
> Sent: Friday, October 13, 2000 5:07 AM
> To:   MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Subject:      Programming alternatives to the AS/400 FTP command.
> 
> Hi guys,
> 
> I am writing an AS/400 application for a client that needs to place
> data
> (customers and products etc) on their ISP. This data will then be
> downloaded
> from the ISP via a dialup connection to a database on a laptop
> computer
> (using FTP on their laptop). The data will then be processed on the
> laptop
> and another file (orders and changes) uploaded from the laptop to the
> ISP
> (again using FTP) from where the AS/400 will collect and process it.
> This
> will be done on many laptops.
> 
> To avoid files being overwritten they will be in unique batches, and
> to
> avoid the AS/400 downloading files while they are still being written
> to,
> the PC will add a suffix to the batch after it has uploaded it. The
> AS/400
> will only download batches with the correct suffix and then delete
> batches
> it has processed. The AS/400 will also leave an acknowledgement file
> so that
> the PC knows the batch has been process and can delete it itself.
> 
> All in all quite a complicated comms handshake but it should be very
> effective.
> 
> My problem occurs with the AS/400 FTP command. This is a very clumsy
> way of
> doing things. At the moment my design is for the AS/400 to write out
> the FTP
> commands required (open, user, put, get, close etc.) to a source
> member at
> run time and then use this member as the input for the FTP command.
> The FTP
> command will output to an error member which my program will read
> after the
> completion of the FTP command. If there were any errors the program
> can the
> write a new FTP member to retry them etc.
> 
> What I want to know (finally!) is if there is a smarter way of doing
> this?
> 
> Can I, for instance, in ILE RPG open a connection to an ISP and then
> put or
> get data, rename and delete files etc? This would hopefully give the
> feedback I require as each operation executes, so that I don't for
> example,
> delete a file that I have failed to get.
> 
> Any ideas? Any examples?
> 
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