[Xitami] FTP - LIST (ls) not returning wildcarded sub-dirs

[Paul Reid]

> On the Sun I get the following output:
 ftp> ls /dtf-tests/*/*Job.type
 /dtf-tests/test1/DocuJob.type
 /dtf-tests/test2/DocuJob.type

Interesting. Wild-card directory is not specifically supported in
most FTP docs, but my school's Sun's docs have a clue: 

 SunOS 5.5 
 FTP(1)                    User Commands    

  ls [remote-directory] [local-file]
  Print a listing of the contents of a directory  on  the
  remote  machine.   The  listing  includes  any  system-
  dependent  information  that  the  server  chooses   to
  include;  for  example,  most UNIX systems will produce
  output from the command `ls -l'.  ....

That is, ftp on unix is liable to call `ls' directly and pipe it
to the terminal. unix 'ls' typically supports wild directories. 

That can't happen on NT, which has no `ls'. It could call `DIR',
or `DIR /s', but Xitami's cross-platform code tends to avoid
platform-specific calls whenever possible, in favor of simple
universal techniques. 

Since wild-carded directories is kind of an obscure feature, I
suspect you may have to try various FTP servers until you find
one that supports it. If the hint in Sun's FTP docs is correct,
you may have better luck on a unix platform. Be aware that the
Linux default FTP service WS-FTP is notoriously hackable (been
there, been bitten). 

Or, if you grok `c', edit and recompile Xitami's ftp functions to
your liking. The code is neat and clean, but folder globbing is
not necessarily easy to roll from scratch. 

It should be possible to build a FTP service in Perl, with `ls'
features of your choice. I know I could not do it, though. 

 -PRR