RFC 949 STATUS OF THIS MEMO

This RFC proposes an extension to the File Transfer Protocol for the ARPA-Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

DISCUSSION

There are various contexts in which it would be desirable to have an FTP command that had the effect of the present STOP but rather than requiring the sender to specify a file name instead caused the resultant file to have a unique name relative to the current directory. This would be useful for all sorts of "pool" directories; the directories that serve as queues for printer daemons come immediately to mind (so do fax and even cardpunch daemons' queues), although naturally the sort of printer queue that a local command has to manage the interface to isn't what's meant by "pool" in this context.

If we accept the need for such an FTP extension, and that it should not be done with an "X" command because it needs to be relied on "everywhere," the interesting question then becomes how to mechanize it. Probably the most natural way to do it would be either to add a "control argument" of -UNM to the syntax of STOR, now that there are enough UNIXtm's around so that this good old Multics trick isn't alien any more, or even to declare that STOR with no argument should cause a directory-unique name to be generated.