[NET-446] Inconsistent short date handling

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Won't Fix
• Affects Version/s: 3.1
• Component/s: FTP
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Sebb
• Created: 29/Feb/12 20:12
• Updated: 03/Jul/15 16:44
• Resolved: 03/Jul/15 16:44

Description

Most FTP servers seem to use short dates when the file date is within +/- 6 months of the server clock.
Some may use a different strategy, for example +0 / -12 months.
The code currently (3.2 SNAPSHOT - r1295237) assumes short dates are always in the past, unless "lenient future date" is selected, in which case a day's grace is allowed, i.e. +1 day / -364 days.

However, when dealing with Feb 29th, the code does not handle the case where the server clock is in the following year.

Since most FTP servers use +/- 6 months for short dates, this is not generally a problem.

Equally, the code does not deal with future dates more than a day in advance, since that is usally all that is needed for handling different time zones. (Is it likely that an FTP server has genuine future-dated files?)

See https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NET-188#comment-12579253 for a suggested API to specify short-date ranges.