[plug] wget query

[Bret Busby]

Greg Gamble wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
>   I agree with almost everything Bret has to say about wget ...
> it's a wonderful downloading tool with all the advantages he
> mentions over netscape ... but the tilde in a URL is not a problem
> 
> > It is quite useful; except where a path includes extended ASCII
> > characters, such as the tilde.
> 
> %7E is just a translation of ~ which is an `active' character
> ... as I understand it, if a browser sees `%7E' in a URL it
> understands it as `~'.
> 
> > Then, it appears, the files have to be downloaded manually and singly.
> 
> No ... you just end up with a directory name that starts with %7E
> ... all the files in that directory come across fine :)
> 
> > If I am wrong in any of this, or, if anyone knows how to get around
> > the tilde problem, constructive advice would be appreciated.
> 
> I don't believe there is a problem ... %7E and ~ in an href or URL
> should be treated by a web browser as synonymous ... however to
> cd to a directory starting with a ~ you need to escape it (with a
> \ or some-such).  In my experience with this I only wanted a directory
> of files well below the %7E... directory and just moved that directory
> to a more suitable place in my local web tree and then deleted the
> remaining directory structure that I had wget-ed (wgot?) ... as, I
> say: ~-problem ... what problem?
> 
>   Regards,
>   Greg Gamble <gregg at maths.uwa.edu.au>

Hello, Greg.

What I get, using wget -r is only the "index.html" in the directory below the
tilde level, and not the sub-directories.

I have tried and it doesn't work.

Nick (I think) suggested using wget -m and I will try that later.

I am currently doing a download on an ftp site, which doesn't use the tilde in
its paths.

After I have cleaned out the results (I am down to 5% free disk space, and have
already had some segmentation error - core dumps and inability to load the
command interpreter, so I will have to do a little cleaning of the downloads),
then, when I have some room, I will try to download from the http site, which
uses the tilde.

I'll see what happens. So far, the tilde has inhibited the downloads using wget,
but I'll try and see what I can do.

Bret Busby
..................