Author Topic: doesn't correctly name files that decode to having quotes around them  (Read 3331 times)

Offline MrbLOB9000

  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 43
apparently when the poster messes up and puts quotes around the file names when they encode them, so when altbinz decodes them insetad of just removing the quotes and nameing th file what it really should be, the filename ends up being (null) and you end up with just one file even if you download all the files.

pretty annoying.

Offline Watcher

  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 23
Can you give an example of what you're saying? If I capture myhomemovie.avi which is 150MB, then I create ten (10) 15MB rars named myhomemovie.rar through myhomemovie.r13, are you saying that I might instead mistakenly name it "myhomemovie.rar" ? or maybe 'myhomemovie.rar' ? Or is what you're describing something that happens at some other point, such as during posting? Like if I go into yEncPowerPost A&A 11c and create a subject of America's Favorite Home Video Candidate -  $1 of $2 - "$F" ?


Offline MrbLOB9000

  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 43
I think the person misconfigured their client for posting and it encoded the files as the name being "filename.part1.rar" instead of filename.part1.rar (the same without the quotes) like it should be, and because that's an invalid name, altbinz doesn't know what to do with it and it just makes one file named (null) and that's it. and appears to download all the parts but only keeps the first one as a file with no extention named (null).
« Last Edit: June 16, 2009, 06:00:38 am by MrbLOB9000 »

Offline Rdl

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 4073
I think the person misconfigured their client for posting and it encoded the files as the name being "filename.part1.rar" instead of filename.part1.rar (the same without the quotes) like it should be, and because that's an invalid name, altbinz doesn't know what to do with it and it just makes one file named (null) and that's it. and appears to download all the parts but only keeps the first one as a file with no extention named (null).
Doesn't have to do anything with filename in the subject of the post. Posted used bad tool for posting which named file "(null)" in yenc header.

Offline MrbLOB9000

  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 43
from some of the replies to the post that was messed up, it looks like some clients can download them depending on the client but I'm not sure.  So are you saying their's no way for this to be fixed?  let me know if you need examples.
« Last Edit: June 16, 2009, 07:06:04 am by MrbLOB9000 »

Offline Rdl

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 4073
from some of the replies to the post that was messed up, it looks like some clients can download them depending on the client but I'm not sure.  So are you saying their's no way for this to be fixed?  let me know if you need examples.
Nothing to be fixed. Alt.binz will download it fully if you don't have "skip already downloaded file" checked. You'll end up with null, null.1, null.2 .... I will not be fixing this one. Poster should be aware he's using bogus posting tool.

Offline DM8Mydog

  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 48
apparently when the poster messes up and puts quotes around the file names (...)

filenames are ment to be surrounded by quotes according to the yEnc specification..

Quoted from http://www.yenc.org/yenc-draft.1.3.txt :
Quote
> (1.2) see additional experience information
> Placing the word "yEnc" between filename+bytes or bytes+comment2
> is acceptable.

Multi-part archives should always be identified as such.  As with
single-part binaries, they should also be identified as yEncoded until
yEncoding becomes more mainstream.

The (strongly) recommended format for subject lines for multi-part binaries
is:

[Comment1] "filename" yEnc (partnum/numparts) [size] [Comment2]

Again, [Comment1] and [Comment2] are optional.  The [size] value is also
optional here.  The filename must be included, in quotes.  The keyword
"yEnc" is mandatory, and must appear between the filename and the size (or
Comment2, if size is omitted).  Future revisions of the draft may specify
additional information may be inserted between the "yEnc" keyword and the
opening parenthesis of the part number. 
> (1.2) see additional experience information
> Placing the word "yEnc" between (#/#)+size or size+comment2
> is acceptable.


What this in practice means is that the filenames should always be surrounded by quotes... according to the specification.

Now since several autoposting bots, and certain usenet channel admins keep ignoring that specification (*wink* *wink*) at some point usenet clients had to start making guesses on what the poster meant the filename to be.
The end result is:
-The filenames will properly be detected *always* if there are quotes around them.
-The filenames will be properly GUESSED *often* if the headers are in a certain standard way, even if the poster messed up and did NOT include the quotes as per the yEnc's specification.

now if anyone reading this is a usenet poster: plz be good boys/girls and always use "$F" on your headers! kthnxbye

oh and one last thing, ... the keyword yEnc is required on headers posted with yEnc, it isn't optional. although, yet again, due to certain broken autoposting bots and certain stuborn channel admins, the clients have to 'guess' the files are indeed encoded using yEnc even if the keyword is absent. (there are other encoding methods that can be used to post binaries on usenet, ie.: UUE)
« Last Edit: June 18, 2009, 07:14:47 pm by DM8Mydog »

Offline Rdl

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 4073
No need for filename guessing. It should be in the beginning of the article in yenc header (name in subject with or without quotes is irrelevant)

Something like:
Code: [Select]
=ybegin line=128 size=123456 name=this_is_filename.rar
Or in this case:
Code: [Select]
=ybegin line=128 size=123456 name=(null)