I've created a directory of symbolic links to a bunch of binary files that I need to send via ftp. Will this work, or will the recipient just get a bunch of null-pointers??

Wow! Your from Iowa City? Cool. I am probably going to go to college there next year. Hehe sorry that was kinda random but when you live out of the US you realize how rare Iowans are!

Now, about your question basically I have no idea. I didn't know you could send over ftp to someone. Do you mean upload it? Also I am not quite sure what you mean by null-pointers. Anyways sorry I am not much help. Don't have much experience with ftp stuff.
-dk

The ftp should send the directory as is (it is not following any commands that are in the directory).

I'd recommend sending it. At least, you would know for sure.

When you do try it, please let us know what happened.

Dave

Hi,

Speaking of FTP, does anyone know of any other useless FTP commands other than NOOP? Right now, my FTP signs out automatically after 120 seconds of inactivity, and I want to try to stop that by automatically directing useless commands every few seconds as a "Keep Alive".

dk01, Great to hear you'll get a chance to experience the middle of the US. You'd be suprised how multi-cultural this town is. I hope you enjoy your time here!

The consensus in the lab is that the upload will work. But, no one is completely sure! I'll have to test it and let you know. Thanks for the help, though.

conkermaniac - I don't know if this is a system command, but you could write a short perl script like this....

use Net::FTP;
$ftp = Net::FTP->new
{
"ftp.cpan.org",
Timeout => 120 # number of sec till timeout
} or die "Could not connect.\n";

I'm new to perl, but I hope that's something you can use.

Thanks for the help,
J

Ya I know my grandpa was a professor at the Uni and still lives in IC so I am there alot. Its really nice. Can't wait.
-dk

UPDATE:

I ended up not using the symbolic links and just sent along a big ol' tarball. I used tar's -h option to de-reference the links, and vois la. So...I don't know if it works or not. sorry!

I'm new to perl, but the common saying seems to hold true, and I find myself using it for the first time: "There is more than one way to get the job done...."

Thanks for the help,
Cheers,
Jason