From: Cameron Kaiser <spectre@stockholm.ptloma.edu>
Message-Id: <200101032306.PAA33482@stockholm.ptloma.edu>
Subject: [gopher] Re: Correct behavior?
In-Reply-To: <20010103174005.A10398@mothra> from David Allen at "Jan 3,
 1 05:40:05 pm"
To: gopher@complete.org
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 15:06:38 -0800 (PST)
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> It looks like it's pretty easy to detect the case where a shell script
> bombs due to this problem.  (chroot() causing this failure).  So
> what's the correct behavior in this situation?  Currently, since the
> program can't execute, it's output is "" and that's exactly what's
> sent to the client.  Would you say that it's appropriate for the
> server to spit out an error message saying something along the lines
> of "Whoops!  Something seems misconfigured here...why don't you drop
> <admin@my.nifty.gopher.com> and email to let him know!"  

On the other hand, it's entirely possible to get this same kind of output
from an empty directory. While in the majority of cases you'd get the
".\r\n" end of data marker, remember the spec doesn't strongly enforce this
(clients are expected to handle simply dropping the connection as valid,
also). I'm not a great fan of in-data signaling, anyway, so I'd rather
drop the connection at the end of data transmission instead of "tainting" the
data stream, but the spec wants it both ways.

hgopher takes the middle ground; it pops up a special dialogue box whining
that there's nothing here. It calls the user's attention to the lack of
data, but expresses no opinion about it so the user can hopefully make some
intelligent(?) decision. Maybe this would be a workable approach for you ... ?

-- 
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
 Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser@stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies. ------------------