Problems with compressed files from ftp sites

[Gil Kloepfer Jr.]

In article <707 at flatline.UUCP> erict at flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend) writes:
>I was trying to get tar sources from an ftp site.  They were compressed,
>no problem.  I ftp'd 'em to a local site (uhnix1), then downloaded them
>to my 3b1 via kermit.
[...]
>then there was nothing but garbage characters.  There were no errors of
>any sort during either of the file xfers, or the decompression..

I've seen this problem transfering files from a system running VAX/VMS
and transfering the files *TO* my UNIX-pc.  I don't know whether it was
the kermit programs I used, or whether it was the typical record-oriented
file structure that VMS uses.  In any case, my problem was the same as your's.
Be sure that your kermit programs do true binary-mode transfer at both
ends, and that one of the hosts isn't a VMS system ;-)

The problem is that somewhere in the string of characters an invalid character
is getting in there and messing up the whole encoding scheme used by the LZ
compression.  One character is all you need to make the rest of the file look
like junk.  If it's a VAX/VMS machine, there are an infinite number of ways
to get some kind of record-control byte in the character stream, or to lose
a character.

To date, I haven't come up with a solution except to copy the compressed
files to a messy-dos floppy disk using DECnet-DOS, then reading the floppy
on my UNIX-pc.  Somehow the DECnet-DOS software preserves the contents of
the file properly.

Hope this helps...if not just provides some insight.

-------
Gil Kloepfer, Jr.          U-Net: {decuac,boulder,talcott,sbcs}!icus!limbic!gil
ICUS Software Systems      Voice: (516) 968-6860 [H]   (516) 746-2350 x219 [W]
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Islip Terrace, NY  11752   "Life's a ...  well, you know..."