FTP Retrieval and Submission

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FTP Retrieval and Submission

As described in this document, papers can be submitted, replaced, and retrieved by anonymous FTP.

Retrieving Papers

Anonymous FTP for retrieving files is enabled on xxx.lanl.gov. (If you are not already familiar with anonymous ftp, this is not a good place to practice.) Use the user name "anonymous" and send your own user name as the password. Then change to the bayes-an directory, which has subdirectories
	bayes-an/listings		Listings of papers received each month
	bayes-an/papers		Submitted sources for the papers
	bayes-an/ps		Generated postscript for the papers
Each of these subdirectories is organized by year and month. So, for instance, the bayes-an/ps directory has subdirectories named "yymm" for each year (yy) and month (mm), within which are files named "yymmnnn.ps.Z" for each paper number bayes-an/yymmnnn.

Submitting and Replacing Papers

In this section, we assume familiarity with the method for submitting and replacing papers by email, and in particular, the format of email submissions.

Submitting a paper to bayes-an by anonymous FTP is a two-step process. First, place your paper (usually as a TeX file), figures, and any other files comprising the submission on xxx.lanl.gov in the directory "incoming/", as follows:

    @ ftp xxx.lanl.gov
    Name: anonymous
    Password: 
    ftp> cd incoming
    ftp> put mypaper.tex
    ftp> put myfigs.uu
Second, send an email command
    To: bayes-an@xxx.lanl.gov
    Subject: fput  ... 
The body format of the `fput' and `freplace' commands is identical to that of the`put' and `replace' commands. In particular, there are three sections, delimited by \\ lines.

The third section, which would have been the body of the paper in a `put' or `replace' submission, is optional. It can be a description of file(s) that have been placed in the incoming ftp directory, and is retained only for submissions that are determined (on the basis of file extension) to contain "non-ascii" components.

File Names of Submitted Files

The arguments to the `fput' and `freplace' commands are the filename(s) of the files that you submitted with anonymous ftp. There can be more than one filename. You must specify the exact filename(s) that were used in the ftp session. Case does not matter in determining the files in the incoming directory, but the case of the filenames used in the `fput' command is important (e.g., file.z and file.Z as arguments to `fput' will both match up with file.z or file.Z on the incoming directory, but the files will be stored with whatever was used in the `fput' e-mail message). To avoid unnecessary confusion, you are strongly urged to use the following standard file name extensions:
    .Z         Standard Unix compress
    .gz        GNU's gzip compression
    .tar.Z     Compressed tar archive
    .tar.gz    gzip'ed tar archive
    .tex       TeX
    .sty       LaTeX style files
    .dvi       DVI file
    .ps        PostScript
    .ps.Z      Compressed PostScript
    .eps       Encapuslated PostScript
    .uu        Uuencoded files
    .jpg       JPEG graphics
    .mpg       MPEG animations
    .hqx       Macintosh bin-hexed files (not recommended)
    .bbl       latex bibliographic files
    .txt,.asc  plain ASCII text
Users should be sure to use the Unix format when naming files (e.g., VMS extensions like .tar_Z should not be used). Your ftp program should allow you to specify a remote file name different from your local one.

Filename extensions are somewhat important since, when used properly and consistently, they give an indication of how the files should be treated when they are sent out through e-mail. Files that can be automatically wrapped to 80 characters per line (called `ascii' files here) have the suffixes .tex, .txt, .asc, .uu, .hqx, .sty, and .bbl. All other files are considered to be `binary' and not safe for e-mailing. If a submission contains files which are all `ascii', then a `get' request will mail back each of the files separately, along with the description of the files included in the body section of the `fput' e-mail message (i.e., the text located after the third set of backslashes). For other submissions, the `get' command will only return the body section describing the files, which can then be retrieved using ftp.

Although there is considerable flexibility in how you choose to put the various files that make up your paper onto the archive, there are important issues to consider. For instance, one of the most common situations is a TeX paper with some number of figures in (Encapsulated) PostScript. You have the choice of putting the paper and all of the figures as separate .tex and .(e)ps files, or you can choose to pack up some or all of the files into a .tar.Z package. For someone retrieving your paper *by e-mail*, it might be preferable to retrieve only one or two files, hence the .tar.Z option is more desirable. Also, by using the .tar.Z approach, you can be sure that the files are unpacked with the correct names, without the reader having to worry about such details.

When using ftp to put files into the incoming directory, you should do an `ls' to list the files already there, and be sure to use names for your files that don't clash with ones already there. Generic file names like `paper.tex' or `fig1.eps' should be avoided since it is more likely that someone else would also use this name. Pick unique names. File names should also be short to keep the subject line of the `fput' message short.

Examples

  1. Ordinary, simple paper with no auxiliary files: ftp xxx.lanl.gov (DO NOT USE telnet!) login: anonymous passwd: your@mail.address ftp> cd incoming ftp> ls (make sure your filenames don't clash with what is there.) ftp> binary (necessary if transferring non-ascii files between a non-Unix machine and xxx.lanl.gov which is a Unix machine.) ftp> put paper.tex smithpaper.tex (this changes the local name to an appropriate remote name.) ftp> ls (make sure you see your submission.) Now send e-mail to the bayes-an server: To: bayes-an@xxx.lanl.gov Subject: fput smithpaper.tex \\ Title: <title of paper with no blank lines> Author: <list of authors and affiliations> Comments: <optional comments, including number of pages, special macros if any> Report-no: <optional report number as assigned by your institution> \\ <Abstract of the paper (or other short description).> \\
  2. Replace paper bayes-an/9401001 with paper and five figures that have been put into a uuencoded myfigs.uu file (via e.g. uufiles): ... << as in example (1) above until "ftp> put" line >> ftp> put mypaper.tex ftp> put myfigs.uu ftp> ls (make sure you see your submission.) Now send e-mail to the bayes-an server: To: bayes-an@xxx.lanl.gov Subject: frep 9401001 mypaper.tex myfigs.uu \\ Title: <title of paper with no blank lines> Author: <list of authors and affiliations> Comments: <optional comments, including number of pages, special macros if any> Report-no: <optional report number as assigned by your institution> \\ <Abstract of the paper (or other short description).> \\
  3. Paper with five figures which have been put into a .tar.Z file ... << as in example (1) above until "ftp> put" line >> ftp> put smithpaper.tex ftp> put smithfigs.tar.Z ftp> ls (make sure you see your submissions.) Now send e-mail to the bayes-an server: To: hep-ph@xxx.lanl.gov Subject: fput smithpaper.tex smithfigs.tar.Z \\ Title: <title of paper with no blank lines> Author: <list of authors and affiliations> Comments: <optional comments, including number of pages, special macros if any> Report-no: <optional report number as assigned by your institution> \\ <Abstract of the paper (or other short description).> \\ This paper is a plain tex file along with a .tar.Z file containing five Encapsulated PostScript files. To unpack them on a Unix machine, use the command zcat smithfig.tar.Z | tar xfv - or the equivalent on a non-Unix machine. Note that the "body" will now be retained due to the "non-ascii" .tar.Z component.
[This message last revised: Wed Nov 2 10:44:05 1994]