[tannevaled]

Net::FTP.default_passive, and the options a nil host was throwing away

Stacked on #927 — the data-connection GVL release has to land first, and the
reason is in that pull request: this change moves the net-ftp specs into
active mode, which is where the Accept #927 wraps actually runs.

The gap

library/net-ftp/spec_helper.rb, which all 56 files require, opens with:

if defined?(Net::FTP.default_passive)
  Net::FTP.default_passive = false
end

rbgo had no such accessor, so that guard was skipped in silence and the
whole suite ran against a connection rbgo kept in passive mode — while the
fixture server implements PORT/EPRT and has no pasv method at all.
That is the 451 Exception: undefined method 'pasv' those specs report.

Implemented against the reference, not against expectations

net-ftp 0.3.9 lib/net/ftp.rb:96 (@@default_passive = true), :159-167 (the
accessors), :286-290 (if options[:passive].nil? → the default). The value
lives in the class variable MRI uses, so
Net::FTP.class_variable_get(:@@default_passive) answers here as it does
there, and one place holds it rather than two that can disagree.

⛔ Two defects the comparison found that reading our own code would not

Net::FTP.new(nil, passive: true) answered false. ftpInit returned
before reading the options Hash whenever the host was nil — so on that path
every option was dropped: binary, the timeouts, the credentials, all of it.
MRI applies the options first and connects separately, and ruby/spec drives
exactly that shape: @ftp.send(:initialize, nil, options) and then asserts
passive (initialize_spec.rb:201-226). A mechanism wired at only some of its
doors, again — the ninth this week.

passive: nil meant false. ftpApplyOpts tested the key's presence;
MRI tests the value, and nil is "no opinion" falling back to the default.
This is the opposite of read_timeout in the same Hash three lines away,
where nil genuinely is a request (for no bound). Both now say which they are,
in a comment, because that is precisely the pair someone will conflate next.

Tests and measurement

A 12-line table driven through rbgo, every line annotated with the reference
line it comes from — including that a connection built before
default_passive = keeps its mode, and that the writer returns its argument.
Plus ftpDefaultPassive's fallbacks (nil class, absent or nil class variable →
true), which no Ruby program can reach and which decide the transfer mode of
every connection.

⛔ Coverage measured before pushing, with the tool added in #925 — which
caught my own gap: covratchet -require ftpDefaultPassive,ftpApplyOpts,ftpInit
first reported ftpDefaultPassive at 66.7%, and reports all three at
100% now. That tool exists because twice in one day a commit written to
answer the coverage ratchet did not move the measurement.

Refs #916, #925, #927

(#916 stays open on purpose: the sweep that would show this moving is still
deferred — this machine has been carrying a 1-minute load average between 23
and 86, and a per-file timeout measured under that cannot tell a hang from a
slow file. #925 and #927 are the pull requests this one builds on.)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code