Re: lynx-dev RFC959 non-compliance in Lynx hangs the client

[David Woolley]

> [ C->S ] RETR /

This should only actually happen when a semantically broken URL is
used.  Correctly formed URLs never result in /s being sent to Unix
servers, as they are always implemented by stepping one directory
at a time from the login directory.  Forcing a / into the URL is used
for broken servers or to work round incorrectly specified URLs.  If
you didn't force in the initial /, then Lynx has a real problem.

Lynx will be doing an RETR here because it doesn't know that the
initial, forced, / is a directory.  The CWD is actually error
recovery in Lynx.

>   mode connection, a compliant server would re-open the same source/destina=
> tion
>   pair should you issue another RETR, which you're about to do.  This will

I suspect the reality is that most servers don't actually open the connection
until they receive the RETR etc.  I'll take your word for it that the
RFC is well defined in this case, but most API specs I've seen tend not
to fully specify the system state after an error return.

Incidentally, the Lynx FTP code is based on a version of the W3C reference
implementation, so it would probably be advisable to check whether they have
diverged in the areas that you are considering.  NB a lot of people will
be using the W3C proxy, built using an old version of the W3C library.