FWIW -
I figured out what's going on, though not entirely why. And I do have a
work-around. The problem is that the FTP client is sending the file as
"BINARY'. Binary data, AFAIK, is sent in 512 byte chunks. A text file
rarely ends on a 512 byte boundary. When the text file is sent as BINARY
the far end Tru-64 system hangs waiting for the chunk to finish. It doesn't
finish. Ultimately the Tru64 FTP daemon gets tired of waiting and times
out... unless the user aborts the transmission before using the CTRL-G key
in Emacs. All behaviors are explained. And I didn't have to fall back on
Intelligent Design either! 9-)
I'm not sure exactly why; but the "Coding system" for the file being read
from Tru64 is set to UNIX. When writing back the FTP client, guessing here,
tells the Tru64 FTP daemon that the "UNIX" coded file is BINARY. However,
if before transmitting the file I change the "Coding system" to DOS using
the set-buffer-file-coding-system function, the transmission get set
correctly to ASCII and the transmission works. I'm looking into how to
automatically have Emacs set the "Coding system" to DOS by default.
Was something changed in a recent release of either Emacs or EmacsW32?
The problem exists, as outlined in the initial report, almost all the way
back to the original version of Ange-FTP. It exists regardless of which FTP
client (EmacsW32 or Windows) is used. It exists regardless of patched or
unpatched EmacsW32.
The only version I couldn't replicate the problem in is the GNU 21.3
Emacs for NT. I must have had the older Ange-FTP somewhere in my load-path
and then deleted it. Don't remember doing this; but facts can be ugly
things when they get in your face.
Regardless, problem resolved. Emacs is truly a many splint'ored program!
(Sorry Barbara!) Lovely and dangerous at the same time.
- Nelson
Nelson E. Ingersoll wrote:
I'm having a problem with the Tramp/Ange-FTP which comets with Emacs32
20070501 (patched and unpatched). I have set the variable
tramp-default-method to "ftp" so that I am forcing the use of ange-ftp.
Tramp plays even less well with Tru64.
When I connect to a Tru64 4.0d system, running it's "FTP server Digital
UNIX Version 5.60" everything appears to work fine. However, when I save my
work the save "hangs" for a long time. The file is written successfully
almost immediately; however, Emacs hangs and the modification flag in the
status bar at the bottom does not change from *'s to dashes. The hang will
clear successfully after, literally, a minute or two. A CTRL-G will also
clear the hang, though the status bar and buffer write-status remain set as
"changed, not saved".
I can use the exact same setup and perform the exact same action to log
onto, modify, and save a file to Linux or Sun systems without any obvious
trouble. Therefore, it appears to be something to do with Tru64's FTP server.
An old version of ange-ftp (1.14?) does NOT have this problem. However,
it does have trouble working with Tramp and can't perform a simple filename
completion because of changes to the code.
Has anyone else experienced a similar problem using EmacsW32 ange-ftp
with Tru64's FTP? If so, did you fix it?
- Nelson
EmacsW32: GNU Emacs 22.0.99.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2007-05-01 on
LENNART-69DE564 (patched) & unpatched.
Tramp: 2.0.55
ftp: Both gnuwin32 ftp.exe and C:\windows\system32\ftp.exe
ftpd: FTP server (Digital UNIX Version 5.60)