Re: FTP rename results in two files in IFS

[Gary Thompson <GThompson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Created time stamps seem to confirm just what you suggested - two FTP 
PUT commands 

Thank you!



CRPence <CRPbottle@xxxxxxxxx> 
Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
01/26/2011 01:47 PM
Please respond to
Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


To
midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
cc

Subject
Re: FTP rename results in two files in IFS






On 1/26/11 11:03 AM, Gary Thompson wrote:
> <<SNIP>> the results are put in a .csv file and sent by FTP to a
> directory under the IFS Root on our iSeries, resulting in hundreds of
> small files a day.
>
> We run a process every few minutes to read these .csv files and post
>  picking results files on our iSeries
>
> To avoid processing a file before the FTP process completes, we use a
>  naming convention where the voice pick server does the FTP PUT using
> a file named with a prefix of FTP_, and the iSeries post process
> ignores any such files.
>
> When the PUT command completes, the VP server re-names the file,
> removing the prefix.
>
> About 98% of the time (just a guess) the re-name works as expected.
>
> For some files, however, the re-name results in two files, the
> "first" file that has the FTP_ prefix and the "second" or re-named
> file without the prefix.
>
> Has anyone seen this?
>
> Any suggestions as to a fix?

   Might be worth investigating... Do both files have [the same or any] 
data, or just one of the two?  How different are the timestamps [create 
and change] for the files?  By suggesting the "VP server renames the 
file removing the prefix", I infer that action is the effect of a line 
in a prepared FTP script using the FTP subcommand RENAME such as the 
unquoted "REN FTP_TEST TEST".?  If a scripted request...

   Probably then, two invocations [not necessarily concurrently] are in 
conflict for having sent the same file name.  On a second send of the 
same file name, the rename request will fail with FTP550 and both file 
names will persist.  A REName failure is probably being ignored for 
"file name already exists"; i.e. the script processing by FTP will log 
the error, but there is no means within the scripting language for a 
MONMSG or ON-ERROR.  So unless a script which was generated to have the 
FTP subcommand RENAME were then scrubbed for errors, that the rename 
failed could easily be unknown.

Regards, Chuck