--- /dev/null
+ -*- outline -*-
+
+This is the to-do list for GNU Wget. There is no timetable of when we
+plan to implement these features -- this is just a list of features
+we'd like to see in Wget, as well as a list of problems that need
+fixing. Patches to implement these items are likely to be accepted,
+especially if they follow the coding convention outlined in PATCHES
+and if they patch the documentation as well.
+
+The items are not listed in any particular order (except that
+recently-added items may tend towards the top). Not all of these
+represent user-visible changes.
+
+* Change the file name generation logic so that redirects can't dictate
+ file names (but redirects should still be followed). By default, file
+ names should be generated only from the URL the user provided. However,
+ with an appropriate flag, Wget will allow the remote server to specify
+ the file name, either through redirection (as is always the case now)
+ or via the increasingly popular header `Content-Disposition: XXX;
+ filename="FILE"'.
+
+ The file name should be generated and displayed *after* processing
+ the server's response, not before, as it is done now. This will
+ allow trivial implementation of -nc, of O_EXCL when opening the
+ file, --html-extension will stop being a horrible hack, and so on.
+
+* -O should be respected, with no exceptions. It should work in
+ conjunction with -N and -k. (This is hard to achieve in the current
+ code base.) Ancillary files, such as directory listings and such,
+ should be downloaded either directly to memory, or to /tmp.
+
+* Implement digest and NTLM authorization for proxies. This is harder
+ than it seems because it requires some rethinking of the HTTP code.
+
+* Rethink the interaction between recur.c (the recursive download code)
+ and HTTP/FTP code. Ideally, the downloading code should have a way
+ to retrieve a file and, optionally, to specify a list of URLs for
+ continuing the "recursive" download. FTP code will surely benefit
+ from such a restructuring because its current incarnation is way too
+ smart for its own good.
+
+* Both HTTP and FTP connections should be first-class objects that can
+ be reused after a download is done. Currently information about both
+ is kept implicitly on the stack, and forgotten after each download.
+
+* Restructure the FTP code to remove massive amounts of code duplication
+ and repetition. Remove all the "intelligence" and make it work as
+ outlined in the previous bullet.
+
+* Add support for SFTP. Teach Wget about newer features of more
+ recent FTP servers in general, such as receiving reliable checksums
+ and timestamps. This can be used to implement really robust
+ downloads.
+
+* Wget shouldn't delete rejected files that were not downloaded, but
+ just found on disk because of `-nc'. For example, `wget -r -nc
+ -A.gif URL' should allow the user to get all the GIFs without
+ removing any of the existing HTML files.
+
+* Be careful not to lose username/password information given for the
+ URL on the command line. For example,
+ wget -r http://username:password@server/path/ should send that
+ username and password to all content under /path/ (this is apparently
+ what browsers do).
+
+* Don't send credentials using "Basic" authorization before the server
+ has a chance to tell us that it supports Digest or NTLM!
+
+* Add a --range parameter allowing you to explicitly specify a range
+ of bytes to get from a file over HTTP (FTP only supports ranges
+ ending at the end of the file, though forcibly disconnecting from
+ the server at the desired endpoint would work). For example,
+ --range=n-m would specify inclusive range (a la the Range header),
+ and --range=n:m would specify exclusive range (a la Python's
+ slices). -c should work with --range by assuming the range is
+ partially downloaded on disk, and contuing from there (effectively
+ requesting a smaller range).
+
+* If multiple FTP URLs are specified that are on the same host, Wget should
+ re-use the connection rather than opening a new one for each file.
+ This should be easy provided the above restructuring of FTP code that
+ would include the FTP connection becoming a first-class objects.
+
+* Try to devise a scheme so that, when password is unknown, Wget asks
+ the user for one. This is harder than it seems because the password
+ may be requested by some page encountered long after the user has
+ left Wget to run.
+
+* If -c used with -N, check to make sure a file hasn't changed on the server
+ before "continuing" to download it (preventing a bogus hybrid file).
+
+* Generalize --html-extension to something like --mime-extensions and
+ have consult mime.types for the preferred extension. Non-HTML files
+ with filenames changed this way would be re-downloaded each time
+ despite -N unless .orig files were saved for them. (#### Why? The
+ HEAD request we use to implement -N would still be able to construct
+ the correct file name based on the declared Content-Type.)
+
+ Since .orig would contain the same data as non-.orig, the latter
+ could be just a link to the former. Another possibility would be to
+ implement a per-directory database called something like
+ .wget_url_mapping containing URLs and their corresponding filenames.
+
+* When spanning hosts, there's no way to say that you are only
+ interested in files in a certain directory on _one_ of the hosts (-I
+ and -X apply to all). Perhaps -I and -X should take an optional
+ "hostname:" before the directory?
+
+* --retr-symlinks should cause wget to traverse links to directories too.
+
+* Make wget return non-zero status in more situations, like incorrect HTTP auth.
+ Create and document different exit statuses for different errors.
+
+* Make -K compare X.orig to X and move the former on top of the latter if
+ they're the same, rather than leaving identical .orig files laying around.
+
+* Make `-k' check for files that were downloaded in the past and convert links
+ to them in newly-downloaded documents.
+
+* Devise a way for options to have effect on a per-URL basis. This is very
+ natural for some options, such as --post-data. It could be implemented
+ simply by having more than one struct options.
+
+* Add option to clobber existing file names (no `.N' suffixes).
+
+* Add option to only list wildcard matches without doing the download. The same
+ could be generalized to support something like apt's --print-uri.
+
+* Handle MIME types correctly. There should be an option to (not)
+ retrieve files based on MIME types, e.g. `--accept-types=image/*'.
+ This would work for FTP by translating file extensions to MIME types
+ using mime.types.
+
+* Allow time-stamping by arbitrary date. For example,
+ wget --if-modified-after DATE URL.
+
+* Make quota apply to single files, preferrably so that the download of an
+ oversized file is not attempted at all.
+
+* When updating an existing mirror, download to temporary files (such as .in*)
+ and rename the file after the download is done.
+
+* Add an option to delete or move no-longer-existent files when mirroring.
+
+* Implement uploading (--upload=FILE URL?) in FTP and HTTP. A beginning of
+ this is available in the form of --post-file, but it should be expanded to
+ be really useful.
+
+* Make HTTP timestamping use If-Modified-Since facility.
+
+* Add more protocols (such as news or possibly some of the streaming
+ protocols), implementing them in a modular fashion.
+
+* Add a "rollback" option to have continued retrieval throw away a
+ configurable number of bytes at the end of a file before resuming
+ download. Apparently, some stupid proxies insert a "transfer
+ interrupted" string we need to get rid of.
projects / wget / commitdiff