4.4.4 Other Spool Subdirectories

`.Sequence'

This directory holds conversation sequence number files. These are used if the sequence command is used for a system (see section 5.7.7 Miscellaneous sys File Commands). The sequence number for the system system is stored in the file `.Sequence/system'. It is simply stored as a printable number.

`.Temp'

This directory holds data files as they are being received from a remote system, before they are moved to their final destination. For file send requests which use a valid temporary file name in the temp field of the `S' or `E' command (see section 6.5.2.1 The S Command), uucico receives the file into `.Temp/system/temp', where system is the name of the remote system, and temp is the temporary file name. If a conversation fails during a file transfer, these files are used to automatically restart the file transfer from the point of failure.

If the `S' or `E' command does not include a temporary file name, automatic restart is not possible. In this case, the files are received into a randomly named file in the `.Temp' directory itself.

`.Preserve'

This directory holds data files which could not be transferred to a remote system for some reason (for example, the data file might be large, and exceed size restrictions imposed by the remote system). When a locally requested file transfer fails, uucico will store the data file in the `.Preserve' directory, and send mail to the requestor describing the failure and naming the saved file.

`.Received'

This directory records which files have been received. If a conversation fails just after uucico acknowledges receipt of a file, it is possible for the acknowledgement to be lost. If this happens, the remote system will resend the file. If the file were an execution request, and uucico did not keep track of which files it had already received, this could lead to the execution being performed twice.

To avoid this problem, when a conversation fails, uucico records each file that has been received, but for which the remote system may not have received the acknowledgement. It records this information by creating an empty file with the name `.Received/system/temp', where system is the name of the remote system, and temp is the temp field of the `S' or `E' command from the remote system (see section 6.5.2.1 The S Command). Then, if the remote system offers the file again in the next conversation, uucico refuses the send request and deletes the record in the `.Received' directory. This approach only works for file sends which use a temporary file name, but this is true of all execution requests.