FTPAPI - my plans for improvement

[Christian <chrisv5@xxxxxx>]

Sender: Christian <chrisv5@xxxxxx>

As I got into fixing FTPAPI due to code page (CCSID) issues, which Scott 
does not hurt that much, being lucky to live in a country with a simple 
language (just kidding, folks!), that's where I want to put my efforts.

I want to fix the "receiving file in ASCII mode where file exists 
already with wrong CCSID" bug and add the possibility to convert to/from 
UCS-2 and UTF-8. If we are lucky, that'll also add support for 
double-byte and mixed-byte.

Honestly, I cannot test anything other than UCS-2 and UTF-8 and I do not 
understand CJK encodings well, either. When it comes to testing and 
fixing those char sets, I'll need help from people who use that stuff. 
Any Chinese, Korean or Japanese willing to help once we get there? Cause 
I am not going to install that stuff on my PCs (though that would be 
possible, if I feel crazy enough) nor do I have the slightest idea how I 
could get our iSeries to work with that.

Now, looking at the conversion code, that stuff is really old. I intend 
to rewrite or at least re-format it, in order to make it easier to 
understand (also for those who come after me) and extend. I tend to be 
rather radical, once I touch old code (well, if it is not more than 
fixing a single line), thus I want to ask Scott first what he thinks 
about it. Anyone else who thinks he got reasons to object, raise your voice!

Here are the first few things which I want to change:

- naming; it's not ASCII or EBCDIC, it's local and remote; client or 
server perhaps; both can be anything, at least on the data connection, 
just imagine you download an EBCDIC file from a remote iSeries into your 
local IFS and want it to be Latin-1. Boy, isn't that confusing right now?

- do we really need conversion descriptors for each session on the 
control channel? It's always ASCII on the remote side and should be the 
job CCSID on the local end. No need for all the hassle with creating and 
storing CDs for each session, right?

- would like to convert all the data structures used for conversion to 
"qualified"; makes it easier to use (LikeDS) and clearer with regard to 
which subfield belongs to what DS, without severly shortened variable names

- want to move globals to local static variables where possible (e.g. 
InitIconv & wkXLInit/wkXLFinit etc.)

Any objections, comments, additional ideas? Of course I want Scott's 
opinion, but anyone else with a good idea, make yourself heard.

Regards,
Christian

P.S: for anyone curious why I push so hard for modernization and code 
cleanup, you should know that I have a strong background in object 
oriented languages (Object Pascal, Delphi, C++, Java) and I am just 
forced to program in RPG (mostly RPG/400 *puke*) to feed my hungry 
children ;-)
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