[Tutor] Corrupt files (fwd)

[ZIYAD A. M. AL-BATLY]

On Tue, 2005-08-02 at 13:22 -0700, Danny Yoo wrote:
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2005 22:12:34 +0200 (CEST)
> From: "[iso-8859-1] yvind" <python at kapitalisten.no>
> To: Danny Yoo <dyoo at hkn.eecs.berkeley.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Tutor] Corrupt files
> 
> Hello and thank you.
> 
> I don't really think that will help. The files are mostly smaller ones of
> for example jpg, avi, txt, doc and xls files. It is not published any MD5
> checksums. Is there any way to check for example that a jpg file is
> completed without opening it? Or, is there some way to check the filesize
> on the server thru http (urlretrieve) and compare with the filesize of the
> downloaded file? Do you think that would work?
> 
> Thanks in advance....
> 
I'm not sure what this is all about, but here's something you might find
it useful.

An HTTP "HEAD" request is like an HTTP "GET" (or normal retrieval) but
the server will not send any data, only the header part.  This might be
useful to you to compare the size and modification date of the files.
Of course, this all assume that the server does send such information
(sadly, some badly programmed/configured HTTP server don't do that!).

For more information about "GET" and "HEAD", search the web or ask here
again.

Ziyad.