I then mget will work for us (we don't need the blow by blow messages,
just the end result); my concern is how long it will take to accomplish
the complete transfer of a some five thousand or so files, and so
whether or not if matters if we do this with a batch file on the LAN
side, or with a job stream on the 3K.

ftp> help mget
MGET remote-files [;buildparms]

Retrieve multiple files from the remote system.  Buildparms may be
specified and will apply to all files in the transfer.  The local
files have the same name as the remote files.  Note MPE/XL file
names are made exclusively of upper case.

>----------
>From:  Pat Shugart[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent:  Wednesday, December 03, 1997 3:34 PM
>To:    [log in to unmask]
>Subject:       [HP3000-L] ftp burden of performance -Reply
>
>One thing we've done when we want to shoot a bunch of files to
>another machine is to initiate the GET on the 3k and use MPEX as the
>looping mechanism.
><example snipped>
>The drawback is that ftp is invoked for each file. I don't know if ftp can
>utilize indirect files for a "bulk transfer" or not. This may not be the
>efficiency you were looking for, but definitely will provide an audit trail.
>
>HTH,
>
>Pat Shugart
>Oaksoft Consulting, Inc.
>(248) 489-6565
>