1 Hey Emacs, this is -*- outline -*- mode
3 This is the to-do list for GNU Wget. There is no timetable of when we
4 plan to implement these features -- this is just a list of features
5 we'd like to see in Wget, as well as a list of problems that need
6 fixing. Patches to implement these items are likely to be accepted,
7 especially if they follow the coding convention outlined in PATCHES
8 and if they patch the documentation as well.
10 The items are not listed in any particular order (except that
11 recently-added items may tend towards the top). Not all of these
12 represent user-visible changes.
14 * Change the file name generation logic so that redirects can't dictate
15 file names (but redirects should still be followed). By default, file
16 names should be generated only from the URL the user provided. However,
17 with an appropriate flag, Wget will allow the remote server to specify
18 the file name, either through redirection (as is always the case now)
19 or via the increasingly popular header `Content-Disposition: XXX;
20 filename="FILE"'. The file name should be generated and displayed
21 *after* processing the server's response, not before, as it is done now.
22 This will allow trivial implementation of -nc, of O_EXCL when opening
23 the file, --html-extension will stop being a horrible hack, and so on.
25 * -O should be respected, with no exceptions. It should work in
26 conjunction with -N and -k. (This is hard to achieve in the current
27 code base.) Ancillary files, such as directory listings and such,
28 should be downloaded either directly to memory, or to /tmp.
30 * Implement digest and NTLM authorization for proxies. This is harder
31 than it seems because it requires some rethinking of the HTTP code.
33 * Rethink the interaction between recur.c (the recursive download code)
34 and HTTP/FTP code. Ideally, the downloading code should have a way
35 to retrieve a file and, optionally, to specify a list of URLs for
36 continuing the "recursive" download. FTP code will surely benefit
37 from such a restructuring because its current incarnation is way too
38 smart for its own good.
40 * Both HTTP and FTP connections should be first-class objects that can
41 be reused after a download is done. Currently information about both
42 is kept implicitly on the stack, and forgotten after each download.
44 * Restructure the FTP code to remove massive amounts of code duplication
45 and repetition. Remove all the "intelligence" and make it work as
46 outlined in the previous bullet.
48 * Add support for SFTP. Teach Wget about newer features of FTP servers
51 * Use FTP features for checking MD5 sums and implementing truly robust
54 * Wget shouldn't delete rejected files that were not downloaded, but
55 just found on disk because of `-nc'. For example, `wget -r -nc
56 -A.gif URL' should allow the user to get all the GIFs without
57 removing any of the existing HTML files.
59 * Be careful not to lose username/password information given for the
60 URL on the command line. For example,
61 wget -r http://username:password@server/path/ should send that
62 username and password to all content under /path/ (this is apparently
65 * Don't send credentials using "Basic" authorization before the server
66 has a chance to tell us that it supports Digest or NTLM!
68 * Add a --range parameter allowing you to explicitly specify a range
69 of bytes to get from a file over HTTP (FTP only supports ranges
70 ending at the end of the file, though forcibly disconnecting from
71 the server at the desired endpoint would work). For example,
72 --range=n-m would specify inclusive range (a la the Range header),
73 and --range=n:m would specify exclusive range (a la Python's
74 slices). -c should work with --range by assuming the range is
75 partially downloaded on disk, and contuing from there (effectively
76 requesting a smaller range).
78 * If multiple FTP URLs are specified that are on the same host, Wget should
79 re-use the connection rather than opening a new one for each file.
80 This should be easy provided the above restructuring of FTP code that
81 would include the FTP connection becoming a first-class objects.
83 * Try to devise a scheme so that, when password is unknown, Wget asks
86 * If -c used with -N, check to make sure a file hasn't changed on the server
87 before "continuing" to download it (preventing a bogus hybrid file).
89 * Generalize --html-extension to something like --mime-extensions and
90 have it look at mime.types/mimecap file for preferred extension.
91 Non-HTML files with filenames changed this way would be
92 re-downloaded each time despite -N unless .orig files were saved for
93 them. Since .orig would contain the same data as non-.orig, the
94 latter could be just a link to the former. Another possibility
95 would be to implement a per-directory database called something like
96 .wget_url_mapping containing URLs and their corresponding filenames.
98 * When spanning hosts, there's no way to say that you are only interested in
99 files in a certain directory on _one_ of the hosts (-I and -X apply to all).
100 Perhaps -I and -X should take an optional hostname before the directory?
102 * --retr-symlinks should cause wget to traverse links to directories too.
104 * Make wget return non-zero status in more situations, like incorrect HTTP auth.
105 Create and document different exit statuses for different errors.
107 * Make -K compare X.orig to X and move the former on top of the latter if
108 they're the same, rather than leaving identical .orig files laying around.
110 * Make `-k' check for files that were downloaded in the past and convert links
111 to them in newly-downloaded documents.
113 * Devise a way for options to have effect on a per-URL basis. This is very
114 natural for some options, such as --post-data. It could be implemented
115 simply by having more than one struct options.
117 * Add option to clobber existing file names (no `.N' suffixes).
119 * Add option to only list wildcard matches without doing the download. The same
120 could be generalized to support something like apt's --print-uri.
122 * Handle MIME types correctly. There should be an option to (not)
123 retrieve files based on MIME types, e.g. `--accept-types=image/*'.
125 * Allow time-stamping by arbitrary date. For example,
126 wget --if-modified-after DATE URL.
128 * Make quota apply to single files, preferrably so that the download of an
129 oversized file is not attempted at all.
131 * When updating an existing mirror, download to temporary files (such as .in*)
132 and rename the file after the download is done.
134 * Add an option to delete or move no-longer-existent files when mirroring.
136 * Implement uploading (--upload=FILE URL?) in FTP and HTTP. A beginning of
137 this is available in the form of --post-file, but it should be expanded to
140 * Make HTTP timestamping use If-Modified-Since facility.
142 * Add more protocols (such as news or possibly some of the streaming
143 protocols), implementing them in a modular fashion.
145 * Add a "rollback" option to have continued retrieval throw away a
146 configurable number of bytes at the end of a file before resuming
147 download. Apparently, some stupid proxies insert a "transfer
148 interrupted" string we need to get rid of.