RE: FTP rename results in two files in IFS

Gary,

It sort of solves the problem by avoiding it. I've not seen the dup file problem before but have worked with FTP transfer processes that used subdirectories. I'd guess that the scan process over the directory is occasionally locking the prefixed file so the rename leaves a ghost version. It's best to not put the file into the directory at all until the PUT is completed.

I've also seen some use of zero length trigger files where the file being PUT is ignored until you see the trigger file. The trigger file shares the same name but with a different extension (.TRG maybe) than the file being transferred. That's another way to semaphore that the PUT is complete. With no rename required you won't get a ghost file. In your case with the hundreds of files I don't think this is a viable solution.

Paul

Principal Programmer Analyst
IT Supply Chain/Replenishment


-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Gary Thompson
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:07 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: FTP rename results in two files in IFS

That seems like a good approach.
Do you think this would solve or avoid the current problem?
Have you ever seen this "dup" file problem?

Thank you for your help!




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RE: FTP rename results in two files in IFS






Gary,

FTP the file to a subdirectory. Because you're doing a PUT to a
subdirectory there is no need to prefix the file name. When the FTP PUT
is complete you use rename to move the file from the subdirectory up to
the main directory to be processed.

Paul

Principal Programmer Analyst
IT Supply Chain/Replenishment

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Gary Thompson
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 2:04 PM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: FTP rename results in two files in IFS

We are running a third-party voice picking application on a win-tel server

on our network.

When orders are ready for the warehouse to load, we send inventory picking

info to the Voice Pick
server by putting our iSeries data in .csv files.

As voice picking results become available on the VP server, the results
are put in a .csv file and
sent by FTP to a directory under the IFS Root on our iSeries,
resulting in hundreds of small files a day.

We run a process every few minutes to read these .csv files and post
picking results files on our iSeries

To avoid processing a file before the FTP process completes, we use a
naming convention where
the voice pick server does the FTP PUT using a file named with a
prefix of FTP_, and the iSeries
post process ignores any such files.

When the PUT command completes, the VP server re-names the file, removing
the prefix.

About 98% of the time (just a guess) the re-name works as expected.

For some files, however, the re-name results in two files, the "first"
file that has the FTP_ prefix and the
"second" or re-named file with-out the prefix.

Has anyone seen this?

Any suggestions as to a fix?