Socket!

[landsman(at)my-deja.com]

Has anyone tried to use the Unix/Windows SOCKET procedure in IDL V5.4,
or thought about ways that it might be useful?     It looks to me like
it should allow one to read a file on an anonymous FTP server, but I
haven't figured out the syntax for this.   (I have no previous socket
programming  experience in other languages, so I am proceeding
naively...)

For example, I can open a socket to an anonymous FTP account on a
machine named 'ftpservername'

IDL> socket, 1, 'ftpservername', 'ftp'

and read the welcome message

IDL> text = ''
IDL> readf,1,text & print,text

but I haven't figured out the syntax for reading a file on
the FTP server.    I'd also be interested in hearing of other possible
applications  for the SOCKET procedure.    Is it mainly for use with a C
interface, or is it useful in pure IDL applications?

Thanks, --Wayne Landsman             landsman@mpb.gsfc.nasa.gov


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