Well, the patch seems to help. I think I am now getting
legitimate output that I didn't always get before. But it did
not completely solve the problem. After some further
experimentation I was able to find a circumvention to the problem.
And this circumvention technique implies the true source of the
problem. But before I go any further, I need to supply some
additional information that I didn't mention before, because I
didn't think it was relevant, but it is now apparent that it is
relevant. I am invoking the command like this:
lftp -f getmyfile.lftp
In other words, I am supplying a script file for lftp to execute.
The contents of getmyfile.lftp look like this:
debug -o getmyfile.output 9
set xfer:clobber yes
open -u xxxxxxxx,yyyyyyyy -p nnnnn my.stupid.little.server.com
get -a -e myfile -o myfile
close
(The other changes to the default values of "set" variables are
being made in /etc/lftp.conf.) The significant point is that debug
output is being directed to a file by means of the "-o" option of
the debug command, instead of being written to the terminal. Now
here is the circumvention technique that I use to get around the
problem. If I manually erase (rm) the debug output file,
getmyfile.output, left over from the previous run of the command,
before invoking the command again, I get the expected output in
getmyfile.output. But if I don't erase the getmyfile.output file
before running the command, and this second run of the command
produces less debug output than the first run did, then there will
be left-over output from the previous run of the command at the end
of the file.
In other words, the first patch that you sent me, the one which
eliminated the duplicate "PROT P" command, did not *cause* the
second problem, rather, it *exposed* the second problem, which was
there all along, and is logically unrelated to the original problem.
I confirmed this in the following way. I erased the getmyfile.output
file, then ran the lftp command listed above. I then examined
getmyfile.output. Output was as expected. I then manually added
four lines to the end of this file with a text editor, each of which
said, "This is garbage.". I saved the changes and exited the editor.
Then I ran the above lftp command again, without erasing the
getmyfile.output file before running the lftp command. I then
examined getmyfile.output. Surely enough, those four lines at the
end, which said, "This is garbage.", were still there.
So the problem is that when debug output is directed to a file by
means of the "-o" option, any pre-existing file by that same name
needs to be erased first. This is not being done. In hindsight,
I should have opened a second thread for this; but I didn't realize
that the two problems were unrelated at the time. Sorry about that.
--
.''`. Stephen Powell
: :' :
`. `'`
`-